Weekly News Quiz for Students

In a much-anticipated lawsuit, the Justice Department accused Google of locking up deals with giant partners like Apple and throttling competition through exclusive business contracts and agreements.

Google’s deals with Apple, mobile carriers, and other handset makers to make its search engine the default option for users accounted for most of its dominant market share in search, the agency said.

“For many years,” the agency said, “Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising—the cornerstones of its empire.”

The lawsuit, which may stretch on for years, could set off a cascade of other antitrust lawsuits from state attorneys general. Antitrust laws ensure fair competition between businesses and protect consumers from unfair business practices.

A campaign has begun to track down parents separated from their children at the U.S. border beginning in 2017 under the Trump administration’s most controversial immigration policy. It is now clear that the parents of 545 of the migrant children still have not been found, according to court documents filed this week.

About 60 of the children were under the age of 5 when they were separated, the documents show.

The Trump administration first provided a court-ordered accounting of separated families in June 2018, stating at the time that about 2,700 children had been taken from their parents after crossing into the United States. After months of searching, all of those families were eventually tracked down and offered the opportunity to be reunited.

But in January 2019, a report by the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Inspector General confirmed that many more children had been separated, including under a previously undisclosed pilot program conducted in El Paso between June and November 2017, before the administration’s widely publicized “zero tolerance” policy officially went into effect.

The Trump administration ended the family separation policy in June 2018 after drawing widespread condemnation from lawmakers in both parties, immigration activists, and the United Nations.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative appeals court judge, was confirmed on Oct. 26 to the Supreme Court, capping a lightning-fast Senate approval that promised to tip the court to the right for years to come.

Republicans overcame unanimous Democratic opposition to make Judge Barrett the 115th justice of the Supreme Court and the fifth woman. The vote was 52 to 48, with all but one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, supporting her.

It was the first time in 151 years that a justice was confirmed without the support of a single member of the minority party, a sign of how bitter Washington’s war over judicial nominations has become.

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, in September created the open seat on the Court.

The extent of the casualties was unclear, but some witnesses reported seeing people who were killed. Videos posted to social media crackled with apparent gunfire and showed people who were wounded and uniformed forces shooting into the air.

The shooting came toward the end of a day of mounting violence in multiple cities, with the national police deploying riot squads in the capital, Abuja, in Lagos, and elsewhere. The unrest spread even after President Muhammadu Buhari attempted to respond to the protesters’ demands by announcing last week that he would disband a special unit of police officers accused of brutalizing people.

Protesters in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, have been demanding that the government disband a rogue police unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, commonly known as SARS, and that they say robs, tortures, and even kills well-dressed young people who the officers think might have money. The crowds have also called for punishment of officers who commit brutality.

The settlement could pave the way for a resolution of thousands of lawsuits brought against the company for its role in a public health crisis that has killed more than 450,000 Americans since 1999.

The company’s owners, members of the wealthy Sackler family, have agreed to pay $225 million in civil penalties. Prosecutors said the agreement did not prevent the filing of criminal charges against Purdue executives or individual members of the Sackler family.

The federal settlement does not end all of the extensive litigation against Purdue. However it does represent a significant advance in the long legal march by states, tribes, cities, and counties to hold the most prominent opioid maker accountable.

On Oct. 25 Pope Francis named Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, a cardinal, elevating the first African-American to the Catholic church’s highest governing body. That represents a groundbreaking act in a year when demands for racial justice have consumed the U.S.

The rise of Archbishop Gregory, who is also the first American named to the College of Cardinals since 2016, comes as debates over how to address the legacy of slavery and racism have extended to the Catholic church, which for centuries excluded Black people from positions of power.

Pope Francis also expressed support for same-sex civil unions in remarks revealed in a documentary film that premiered on Oct. 21, staking out new ground for the church’s recognition of gay people.

Roughly 200 million miles from Earth, the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft pulled off its collection of bits of asteroid, a carbon-rich rock known as Bennu, perfectly. It then backed away and headed back to orbit.

Many asteroids—including Bennu—cross the orbit of Earth and could collide with our planet someday. A better understanding of these space rocks, which come in many types and sizes, could aid humanity’s ability to divert one that might slam into Earth.