Regulation and Deregulation of Industry

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      Judge Hears Final Arguments on How to Fix Google’s Search Monopoly

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      A judge queried lawyers during closing arguments on Friday about how A.I. should factor into his decision, which is expected by August.Judge Amit P. Mehta has some tough decisions to make about Google.That much was clear on Friday as the federal judge, who sits on the U.S. District Court in Washington, peppered lawyers for the Justice Department and the tech company with questions during closing arguments over about how best to fix the company’s search monopoly. The conclusion of the three-week hearing means the decision will now be in the hands of the judge, who is expected to issue a ruling by August.The government has asked the court to force Google to sell Chrome, its popular web browser, and share the data behind its search results with rivals. The company has countered with a far narrower proposal.Judge Mehta, who ruled last year that the company had broken antitrust laws to maintain its dominance in search, quickly turned his attention Friday to artificial intelligence, which many tech experts expect to upend search. Given that A.I. products are already changing the tech industry, the judge said he was grappling with questions about whether the proposals could lead a new challenger to “come off the sidelines and build a general search engine.”“Does the government believe that there is a market for a new search engine to emerge” as we think of one today, he asked. The government argued that A.I. products were connected to the future of search.Judge Mehta’s ruling could reshape a company synonymous with online search at a pivotal moment. Google is in a fierce race with other tech companies, including Microsoft, Meta and the startup OpenAI, to convince consumers to use generative A.I. tools that can spit out humanlike answers to questions. Judge Mehta’s ruling could directly hamper Google’s efforts to develop its own A.I. or offer a leg up to its competitors as they race to build their own new versions of A.I.-powered search.In addition, Judge Mehta’s decision will signal whether the government’s recent push to rein in the biggest tech companies through a series of antitrust lawsuits can result in significant changes to the way they do business.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      S.E.C. Drops Lawsuit Against Binance, a Crypto Exchange

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      The dismissal of charges against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, is the Trump administration’s latest pullback in cryptocurrency enforcement.The Trump administration’s retreat on crypto enforcement continued on Thursday as the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it was dismissing a lawsuit it filed two years ago against the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.The S.E.C. had accused Binance and Mr. Zhao of lying to regulators about its operations in the United States and mishandling customer money.The commission, the nation’s top securities regulator, has moved to dismiss more than a dozen lawsuits or investigations against crypto firms. In February, it asked a federal judge to stay the litigation against Binance as it reassessed its approach to regulating the fast-growing crypto industry.In the four-page dismissal notice, the regulator said it was dropping the litigation “in the exercise of its discretion and as a policy matter.”The dismissal is a signature moment for the S.E.C.’s regulatory rollback given the prominence of Mr. Zhao, a multibillionaire, in the crypto industry.Mr. Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian who is also known as C.Z., pleaded guilty in November 2023 to violating federal money-laundering charges. But he spent just four months in federal prison and emerged with most of his financial empire untouched.This month, World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm started by President Trump’s family, announced that it was helping to facilitate a $2 billion business deal between Binance and MGX, an Abu Dubai-backed fund. Executives for World Liberty Financial also met with Mr. Zhao.Mr. Trump, once a critic of the crypto industry, reversed his stance during last year’s presidential campaign and vowed to let the industry flourish and roll back much of the S.E.C.’s regulatory enforcement agenda.Mr. Trump and his family also have become major financial boosters of the crypto industry. Besides World Liberty Financial, they are backing a so-called memecoin that was introduced just days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January.Last week, the president hosted a dinner at his Virginia golf club, and among the guests were the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, known as $TRUMP. The event helped promote sales of the memecoin, which has become a vehicle for investors, including many foreigners, to funnel money to his family.American Bitcoin, a crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said this month that it planned to go public.And this week, Mr. Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, said it had raised $2.5 billion from investors to buy up Bitcoin, essentially as an investment strategy. Trump Media, a money-losing venture, is the parent company of Truth Social.Mr. Trump is the company’s largest shareholder, with a stake worth more than $2 billion. His shares are held in a trust managed by his eldest son, Donald Jr., who is a board member.Critics have said the Trump family’s involvement with crypto poses a potential conflict of interest given the S.E.C.’s moves easing the regulation of digital assets.David Yaffe-Bellany More

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      United Airlines Will Return to J.F.K. Through a Deal With JetBlue

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      The partnership comes after Newark’s airport, where United has a big hub, suffered long delays because of air traffic control problems.United Airlines and JetBlue Airways said on Thursday that they would swap a handful of flights at two New York airports, providing United a long-sought return to Kennedy International Airport. The airlines will also sell tickets on each other’s flights and link their loyalty programs.Under a new partnership called Blue Sky, the airlines would swap seven flights at J.F.K. and Newark Liberty International Airport, giving United another option in the New York area. That is important because Newark, one of United’s biggest hubs, has been strained for years under the weight of rising congestion and air traffic control staffing shortfalls. The trade would begin as soon as 2027, the airlines said. Other elements of the deal could begin as soon as this fall, pending a regulatory review.Customers will also be able to earn and use United’s MileagePlus loyalty points on most JetBlue flights. JetBlue customers will be able to earn and use the airline’s TrueBlue points for flights on United’s network.The airlines will also provide reciprocal benefits — such as early boarding, free checked bags and seats with extra legroom — to members of both loyalty programs and sell flights operated by the other carrier. Unlike some partnerships, in which such flights are offered under the name of the airline selling the tickets, these flights will continue to be branded independently.Airlines have long used such partnerships to gain access to more customers and limited number of gates and takeoff and landing rights at busy airports. Consumer groups have often criticized such deals, arguing that they lead to higher fares and fewer choices for travelers because airlines are unlikely to compete aggressively with a partner.United and JetBlue executives said that customers would benefit from the wider range of flights provided under their agreement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Curbs Scope of Environmental Reviews

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      The question for the justices was whether an agency had complied with a federal law by issuing a 3,600-page report on the impact of a proposed railway in Utah.The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that a federal agency had done enough to consider the environmental impact of a proposed 88-mile railway in Utah. The ruling limits the scope of environmental reviews required by federal law in all sorts of settings.The proposed railway would connect oil fields in the Uinta Basin in northeast Utah to a national rail network that runs next to the Colorado River and then to refineries on the Gulf Coast.“An agency may weigh environmental consequences as the agency reasonably sees fit,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for five justices. The court’s three liberal members agreed with the decision’s bottom line but on narrower grounds. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch was recused.The Surface Transportation Board, a federal agency that regulates rail transportation, approved the Utah project in 2021 after conducting a review that yielded a 3,600-page report. Environmental groups and a Colorado county sued, saying the report had not taken account of some ways in which the railway could do harm to the environment.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled for the challengers.The environmental impact statements required by a 1970 federal law, the National Environmental Policy Act, can be quite elaborate. Paul D. Clement, a lawyer representing seven Utah counties that support the project, told the justices when the case was argued in December that the law was “the single most litigated environmental statute.”He added that the board had acted responsibly.“It consulted with dozens of agencies, considered every proximate effect and ordered 91 mitigation measures,” he said, referring to measures intended to, among other things, dampen noise pollution and protect wildlife. “Eighty-eight miles of track should not require more than 3,600 pages of environmental analysis.”William M. Jay, a lawyer for the challengers, said at the argument that the report did not consider all the reasonably foreseeable results of the project, like oil spills and sparks that can cause wildfires, as required by the federal law.The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colo., No. 23-975, was argued before an eight-member court after Justice Gorsuch recused himself, apparently over concerns that his ties to Philip F. Anschutz gave rise to a conflict of interest. Neither Mr. Anschutz, a billionaire and Republican donor, nor his companies are parties to the case, and the letter announcing Justice Gorsuch’s recusal gave no reasons.But the proposed railway could benefit companies in which Mr. Anschutz has an interest. Justice Gorsuch represented Mr. Anschutz and his companies as a lawyer, benefited from his support when he was being considered for a seat on an appeals court and once served as a keynote speaker at an annual party at his ranch. More

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      Republican Vote Against E.V. Mandate Felt Like an Attack on California, Democrats Say

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      For decades, California has been able to adopt its own emissions regulations, effectively setting the bar for carmakers nationally. And for just as long, Republicans have resented the state’s outsize influence.There is little question that California leaders already see fossil fuels as a relic of the past.At the Southern California headquarters of the state’s powerful clean-air regulator, the centerpiece art installation depicts in limestone a petrified gas station. Fuel nozzles lie on the ground in decay, evoking an imagined extinction of gas pumps.For more than half a century, the federal government has allowed California to set its own stringent pollution limits, a practice that has resulted in more efficient vehicles and the nation’s most aggressive push toward electric cars. Many Democratic-led states have adopted California’s standards, prompting automakers to move their national fleets in the same direction.With that unusual power, however, has come resentment from Republican states where the fossil fuel industry still undergirds their present and future. When Republicans in Congress last week revoked the state’s authority to set three of its mandates on electric vehicles and trucks, they saw it not just as a policy reversal but also as a statement that liberal California should be put in its place.“We’ve created a superstate system where California has more rights than other states,” Representative Morgan Griffith, who represents rural southwestern Virginia, said in an interview. “My constituents think most folks in California are out of touch with reality. You see this stuff coming out of California and say, ‘What?’”Federal law typically pre-empts state law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. But in 1967, the federal government allowed smoggy California to receive waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency to enact its own clean-air standards that were tougher than federal limits, because the state historically had some of the most polluted air in the nation. Federal law also allows other states to adopt California’s standards as their own under certain circumstances.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said last week that the state would fight in court to preserve its autonomy in setting emissions rules.Rich Pedroncelli/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Senate Republicans Kill California’s Ban on Gas-Powered Cars

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      In 50 years, California’s authority to set environmental rules that are tougher than national standards had never been challenged by Congress. Until now.The Senate on Thursday blocked California’s landmark plan to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, setting up a legal battle that could shape the electric car market in the United States.The 51-44 vote was a victory for the oil and gas industry and for Republicans who muscled through the vote by deploying an unusual legislative tactic that Democrats denounced as a “nuclear” option that would affect the way the Senate operates way beyond climate policy.The repeal deals a blow to California’s ambition of accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles. But the consequences will ripple across the country. That’s because 11 other states intended to follow California’s plan and stop selling new gas-powered cars by 2035. Together, they account for about 40 percent of the U.S. auto market.The resolution, which had already been approved by the House, now goes to President Trump’s desk. Mr. Trump, who opposes clean energy and has taken particular umbrage at California’s efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels, is expected to sign it into law.California leaders have promised to challenge the Senate vote and try to restore the ban.“This Senate vote is illegal,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California. “Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won’t stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again — undoing work that goes back to the days of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — all while ceding our economic future to China.“California’s auto policy was allowed under permission granted by the Biden administration. The 1970 Clean Air Act specifies that California can receive waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency to enact clean air standards that are tougher than federal limits because the state has historically had the most polluted air in the nation. Federal law also allows other states to adopt California’s standards under certain circumstances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Senate Advances Crypto Regulation Bill With Bipartisan Support

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      Democrats who had sided with the rest of their party last week to block the measure over concerns that President Trump could benefit dropped their objections. They argued that regulating the industry was urgent.The Senate on Monday revived a first-of-its-kind bill to regulate parts of the cryptocurrency industry, after a small number of Democrats who had joined the rest of their party in blocking the measure joined Republicans in allowing it to advance.The vote was 66 to 32 to move forward with the legislation, which would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency tied to the value of an existing asset, often the U.S. dollar. Sixteen Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in support, acting over the opposition of most others in their party, who were concerned that President Trump and his family were inappropriately profiting from crypto.The vote was a victory for the cryptocurrency industry, which has made significant advances in Washington with the backing of Mr. Trump and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. It suggested that the measure would have enough support to pass the Senate and potentially make it to Mr. Trump’s desk in short order. A parallel effort in the House has faced similar backlash from Democrats, who earlier this month blocked a hearing on the legislation but are unlikely to have the votes to prevent it from passing.In the Senate, a bloc of Democratic supporters had pressed in recent days to include stronger consumer protections and transparency requirements in the legislation, as well as provisions aimed at combating money laundering and terrorism financing.But the most animating worry for Democrats was that the legislation could enable the president and his family to profit by issuing their own stablecoins. Concerns over the Trump family’s involvement in the industry intensified after reporting by The New York Times showed how a firm associated with the president had recently become one of the most influential players in the industry.In a prolonged round of bipartisan negotiations over the bill, Republicans steadfastly refused to consider adding any provision to rein in Mr. Trump’s involvement in the industry, or make any modification that could interfere with his or his family’s ability to benefit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      F.D.A. Approves Novavax Covid Vaccine With Stricter New Conditions

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      The agency narrowed who can get the shot and added new study requirements that could cost the company tens of millions.The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine, but only for older adults and for others over age 12 who have at least one medical condition that puts them at high risk from Covid.Scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who typically make decisions on who should get approved shots and when, have been debating whether to recommend Covid shots only to the most vulnerable Americans. The F.D.A.’s decision appeared to render at least part of their discussion moot.The new restriction will sharply limit access to the Novavax vaccine for people under 65 who are in good health. It may leave Americans who do not have underlying conditions at risk if a more virulent version of the coronavirus were to emerge. It could also limit options for people who want the vaccine for a wide array of reasons, including to protect a vulnerable loved one.The vaccine had previously been authorized under emergency use. Covid vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which are more widely used by Americans, were granted full approval in 2022. However, the companies are working on updated shots for the fall, and the new restrictions on the Novavax shot portend a more restrictive approach from the F.D.A.The F.D.A.’s new restrictions also appeared to reflect the high degree of skepticism about vaccines from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the other leaders he has appointed at health agencies.“This is incredibly disappointing,” said Dr. Camille Kotton, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital who cares for immunocompromised patients, and a former adviser to the C.D.C.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More