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US Warship Enters Taiwan Strait as 200 US Soldiers Arrive in Taiwan

The warship USS Milius passed through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday in what the US Navy described as a “routine” passage on Monday, only days after US soldiers arrived in Taiwan.
China, which considers Taiwan to be its own territory, formally concluded three days of exercises around Taiwan on Monday, during which it practised precision attacks and blockading the island.
It organised the drills in response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which it saw as an intervention in Chinese internal affairs and US support for Taiwan’s separate identity from China.
The USS Milius, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, made a “routine Taiwan Strait transit” in waters “where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law,” according to Reuters.
The transit of the ship underlines the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, it added.
China Monitoring US Warship
In a social media statement on Monday, the Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command stated it had organised personnel to track and monitor the US warship throughout its operation.
According to Taiwan’s defence ministry, the ship went north via the strait and the situation in the strait was “as normal” during its transit.
The US Navy sends warships through the strait around once a month, and it also undertakes similar freedom of passage missions in the disputed South China Sea on a regular basis.
The USS Milius cruised last week near Mischief Reef, one of the most prominent man-made and Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea. Beijing called it illegal.
Since the drills finished, China has continued its military activities around Taiwan, albeit on a smaller scale.
Taiwan’s defence ministry reported on Monday morning that it had detected 18 Chinese military aircraft and four naval vessels moving around Taiwan in the previous 24 hours.
China has never abandoned the use of force to seize democratically controlled Taiwan.
US Troops in Taiwan
According to the Taiwan News, the United States has sent more than 200 troops to Taiwan to train Taiwan’s armed forces. US officials said in February that 100 to 200 soldiers would be sent to Taiwan to train.
According to military sources, the US Indo-Pacific Command has dispatched more than 200 military trainers to Taiwan to help local forces in training and to suggest changes.
80% of the more than 200 instructors are from the United States Army. The majority of the American instructors are assigned to Taiwan’s Army’s new training centres and reserve brigades.
The instructors from the United States Army will provide on-the-spot training evaluations and recommendations. Taiwan will begin the one-year compulsory service period next year, and recruit training will follow the combat training programmes provided by the United States military in order to deal with the People’s Liberation Army.
According to the source, Taiwan Air Force pilots and other personnel have been trained for many years at Luke Air Force Base in Maricopa County, Arizona. The Taiwan Navy’s Dunmu “Goodwill Fleet” frequently conducts cooperative training and other exchanges with US Navy ships during its multi-week cruise.
Given this background of prior exchanges, barely 20% of the current crop of US trainers are from the US Navy or Air Force, and are primarily “specialised instructors.” Despite the fact that the Taiwan Army has special operations personnel who are trained by American instructors, the US military has decided that there is a training gap between the Taiwan Army’s grassroots units and combat tactics education.
US Training Taiwanese Soldiers
As a result, over 160 of the instructors dispatched by the United States Indo-Pacific Command are non-commissioned officers with combat experience. In addition to being stationed in Taiwan’s Army’s key combat units, the majority of these instructors visit army recruiting centres and reserve brigades to inspect basic training and propose enhanced training methods to improve Taiwan’s Army’s overall combat effectiveness.
US military instructors reportedly invaded Chiashan Air Force Base in Hualien County in early April to re-evaluate the safety of the bunkers, such as explosion-proof and protective facilities, particularly the safety of places where fighter planes and ammunition are stored. They also investigated whether satellites can identify munitions stored in the open air and the area where fighter jets are housed. They then offered measures to increase bunker security facilities in order to limit weapon damage.
Taiwan’s Army’s defence plan
Military exercises between Taiwan and the United States are said to be taking place within the scope of the National Defence Authorization Act. According to the US military assessment, Taiwan’s Army’s defence plan has many faults and may not be able to adequately respond to the PLA’s modernized and quick attacks.
The United States proposed that the Taiwan Army begin with the most basic recruit training and reserve brigade training to increase its combat power. As a result, at this point, the majority of US Army trainers are stationed in Taiwan’s new training centre and reserve brigades to assess whether recruit training and teaching and training of reserve soldiers fulfil the needs of defensive operations.
In terms of the Taiwan Armed Forces Reserve, U.S. Army personnel were present for the first civil defence mobilisation and disaster prevention and rescue exercise (Min’an No. 8) held in Taichung City a year ago. On March 23, the 117th Brigade of the Army’s Eighth Corps started a fresh 14-day training and training exercise, which two alleged US military members watched and photographed.
US army instructors will provide a comprehensive report on the reserve brigade and the new training centre in the second part of this year. After clearance by the Ministry of National Defence, recruits’ training will be based on the new US military ideas when the one-year compulsory service resumes next year.

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.
Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.
The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.
Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.
Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.
He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.
“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.
Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.
SOURCE | AP
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