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Apple Found in Breach of EU Competition Rules (Maria)
The author writes, “Apple has been found to be in breach of sweeping new EU laws designed to allow smaller companies to compete and allow consumers to find cheaper and alternative apps in the tech business’s app store. The European Commission, which also acts as the EU antitrust and technology regulator, said it had sent its preliminary findings to Apple after an investigation launched in March. ‘For too long Apple has been squeezing out innovative companies — denying consumers new opportunities and choices,’ said Thierry Breton, the European commissioner responsible for digital markets, on X.”
If Trump Loses, We Might Owe the Supreme Court (Reader Steve)
From The Bulwark: “The high court’s six conservative justices, half of them named by Donald Trump, could well be Joe Biden’s ticket to a second term. Like Trump himself, they are a scandal-and-controversy machine, constantly renewing old furors and creating new ones. Democrats couldn’t ask for better material, or more of it. Whether the issue is abortion, guns, or the rule of law, and pondering if presidents are like kings and, if so, how much, there’s a ruling for that. Sometimes two or three. And if there isn’t yet, there will be soon.”
‘I Was a MAGA Activist. I Was a MAGA True Believer.’ He’s Now Creating a Community for People Who Abandon Trump. (Russ)
From the Orlando Sentinel: “Rich Logis was deep into Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. Very, very deep. Among the hardest of hard-core supporters for seven years, he bought into the rhetoric, and espoused it as his own. Logis shunned those who disagreed, and developed bonds with fellow believers. … He ignored sources of information that didn’t echo MAGA viewpoints, and castigated journalists and news outlets that didn’t parrot the party line. No more.”
Right-Wing Cases Built on Made-Up Stories Keep Making It to the US Supreme Court (Reader Jim)
The author writes, “Again and again, the conservative movement promotes cases based on inaccuracies, falsehoods and outright deceptions.”
Scientists Find Plastic-Eating Fungus Feasting on Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Russ)
The author writes, “Does nature have to do everything itself? An international cohort of marine scientists discovered an ocean-borne fungus chomping through plastic trash suspended in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as detailed in a new study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Dubbed Parengyodontium album, the fungus was discovered among the thin layers of other microbes that live in and around the floating plastic pile in the North Pacific.”
The Torture and Killing of a Wolf, a New Endangered Species Lawsuit and Novel Science Revive Wyoming Debate Over the Predator (Laura)
From Inside Climate News: “Conservationists are split over how to protect a keystone species in the Cowboy State. Can new science estimating the predators’ effects on carbon sequestration provide a path forward?”
James Webb Space Telescope Spies Never-Before-Seen Star Behavior in Distant Nebula (Dana)
The author writes, “The James Webb Space Telescope has taken another extraordinary photo. The subject is the Serpens Nebula, which lies about 1,300 light-years from Earth. And the new JWST image showcases a very special phenomenon long theorized to exist, but never before observed. In the upper left part of the photo are several ‘protostellar outflows,’ or jets of gas erupting out of newborn stars. While we’ve seen such outflows before, we’ve never seen them line up in the same direction as in the JWST image; NASA likens them to ‘sleet pouring down during a storm.’”
