SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Video game maker Epic Games has reached a “comprehensive settlement” with Google that could end its 5-year-old legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps.

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Epic and Google revealed the settlement agreement in a joint legal document they filed in a San Francisco federal court Tuesday.

They said it “would allow the parties to put their disputes aside while making Android a more vibrant and competitive platform for users and developers.”

Epic, which makes the hit online game Fortnite, won a victory over the summer when a federal appeals court upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly. The unanimous ruling cleared the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shake-up that’s designed to give consumers more choices. Google took another hit in October when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to protect it from the judge’s required app store makeover.

The specific terms of the settlement agreement remain under seal and must be approved by U.S. District Judge James Donato, but the two companies broadly outlined some of their agreements in their joint filing.

They said the settlement closely follows Donato’s October 2024 ruling ordering Google to tear down the digital walls shielding its Android app store from competition. That included a provision that will require its app store to distribute rival third-party app stores so consumers can download them to their phones, if they so desire.

Google had hoped to void those changes with an appeal, but the ruling issued in July by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a legal blow for the tech giant, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials affecting different pillars of its internet empire.

Epic Games filed lawsuits targeting Google’s Play Store as well as Apple’s iPhone app store in 2020 in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions. The settlement agreement proposed Tuesday calls for Google to limit those payments to between 9% and 20%, depending on the transaction.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called the settlement an “awesome proposal” in a social media post. Sameer Samat, president of Google’s Android division, said it will “focus on expanding developer choice and flexibility, lowering fees, and encouraging more competition all while keeping users safe.” Google had previously complained that Donato’s forcing of more app store competition posed security concerns. A hearing is set for Thursday.

By MAE ANDERSON

NEW YORK (AP) — The UPS cargo plane crash on Tuesday at the company’s global aviation hub in Kentucky, which killed at least nine, will temporarily disrupt the supply chain and result in some shipping delays.

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But UPS says it has contingency plans in place, and experts say the impact should be cleared up before the peak holiday season.

The plane crashed Tuesday evening as it was departing for Honolulu from UPS Worldport, UPS’ largest shipping hub, at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Package sorting at the center was halted late Tuesday and the halt continued on Wednesday. About 416,000 packages can be sorted at the facility per hour, according to a UPS fact sheet.

Consumers who want to check on their UPS packages can wait to hear from the company or look up tracking details online.

Tom Goldsby, professor of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said UPS will most likely step up flights to its regional hubs to offset Worldport’s closure.

The hubs are “going to take on a greater burden until that critical operation in Louisville gets back to the full capacity,” he said.

UPS said in a statement that it has contingency plans in place to help ensure that shipments arrive at their final destinations as quickly as conditions permit, but did not give specifics on what the plans were.

Goldsby said UPS will be under pressure to resolve any delays before the peak holiday season.

“It’s an issue that they quickly want to resolve, but they are going to have to do their due diligence in resolving the current crisis,” he said.

He himself was expecting a UPS package from Oregon routed through Worldport today, but got a message that it would have to be rescheduled.

“I understand the circumstance and will gladly receive it when it arrives,” he said, adding patience will be needed for others expecting packages. “People and businesses don’t have a lot of understanding (about the supply chain). We just don’t expect our logistics operations to have a calamity or even a bad day.″

The crash comes as UPS works on a turnaround, focusing less on Amazon deliveries and more on business-to-business deliveries. In its most recent earnings report last week, the company said it has cut 48,000 jobs in the year to date and closed some buildings as part of its turnaround. Its third-quarter results beat expectations.

By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ and FERNANDA FIGUEROA, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — What should have been a five-minute time-saving walk from Mexico’s National Palace to the Education Ministry for President Claudia Sheinbaum has become a stomach-churning viral moment after a video captured a drunk man groping the president.

The brief clip has given the daily harassment and assaults that women suffer in Mexico their highest-profile platform. And on Wednesday, Sheinbaum used her daily press briefing to say that she had pressed charges against the man.

She also called on states to look at their laws and procedures to make it easier for women to report such assaults and said Mexicans needed to hear a “loud and clear, no, women’s personal space must not be violated.”

Sheinbaum said she felt a responsibility to press charges, because if not, where would that leave Mexican women? “If this is done to the president, what is going to happen to all of the young women in our country?”

Indeed, if Mexico’s president cannot be in the street for five minutes without a man approaching her from behind, putting his hands on her body and leaning in for a kiss, then it’s not difficult to imagine what women with hours-long commutes on public transportation are experiencing daily.

Andrea González Martínez, 27, who works for Mexican lender Nacional Monte de Piedad, said she has been harassed on public transportation, in one case the man followed her home.

“It happens regularly, it happens on public transportation,” she said. “It’s something you experience every day in Mexico.”

Her coworker, Carmen Maldonado Castillo, 43, said she has witnessed it.

“It’s not good that men attack us,” she said. “You can’t walk around free in the street.”

Sheinbaum said Wednesday that she understands how widespread the problem is.

“I decided to press charges because this is something that I experienced as a woman, but that we as women experience in our country,” she said.

She said she had similar experiences of harassment when she was 12 years old and using public transportation to get to school. As president, she said, she felt like she had a responsibility to all women.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada had announced overnight that the man had been arrested.

The incident immediately raised questions about the president’s security, but Sheinbaum dismissed any suggestion that she would increase her security or change how she interacts with people.

She explained that she and her team had decided to walk from the National Palace to the Education Ministry to save time. She said they could walk it in five minutes, rather than taking a 20-minute car ride.

Brugada used some of Sheinbaum’s own language about being elected Mexico’s first woman president to emphasize that harassment of any woman – in this case Mexico’s most powerful – is an assault on all women.

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When Sheinbaum was elected, she said that it wasn’t just her coming to power, it was all women. Brugada said that was “not a slogan, it’s a commitment to not look the other way, to not allow misogyny to continue to be veiled in habits, to not accept a single additional humiliation, not another abuse, not a single femicide more.”

Lilian Valvuena, 31, said she didn’t think Sheinbaum had really taken violence against women seriously until yesterday when she had a first-hand experience. She hopes that work to better train police to respond will follow.

“They have to prepare them,” she said. “They don’t know what protocols to follow.”

Marina Reyna, executive director of the Guerrero Association against Violence toward Women, said that watching the video she initially worried that Sheinbaum had minimized the assault, continuing to smile and talk calmly to the man. But she hoped the president’s willingness to talk about it Wednesday would change how such cases are handled.

“You lose confidence in the institutions,” Reyna said. “The people stop going to report it, because when you report it nothing happens.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Business Writer

Starbucks’ union members have voted to strike at the company’s U.S. stores next week unless it finalizes a contract agreement, the union said Wednesday.

The strike would begin on Nov. 13, which is the day Starbucks plans to distribute free, reusable red cups. Red Cup Day, a Starbucks tradition since 2018, is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year.

Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, didn’t say how many stores would be impacted. But it said workers in at least 25 cities planned to strike and more locations could be added if the union doesn’t see “substantial progress” toward finalizing a contract.

Around 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-operated U.S. stores are currently unionized. More stores have voted to unionize since 2021, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger restructuring.

The union and the company have yet to agree to a labor contract. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise, last fall. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s new chairman and CEO.

Starbucks said Wednesday that it’s disappointed the union plans to strike instead of returning to the bargaining table.

“Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail, including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners,” Starbucks spokeswoman Jaci Anderson said Wednesday.

In a letter to Starbucks employees released Wednesday, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union has proposed a 65% pay increase immediately and a 77% increase over three years, with additional payments for things like weekends or days when Starbucks runs promotions. Kelly also said some proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if the store is busy.

“These aren’t serious, evidence-based proposals,” Kelly said.

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But unionized baristas said they don’t always get the 20 hours per week they need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Unionized workers also point to Starbucks’ generous pay package for Niccol, which saw him make $95.8 million in 2024. The package included $75 million in equity to make up for what he forfeited by his abrupt departure from Chipotle, his previous employer.

“Our fight is about actually making Starbucks jobs the best jobs in retail. Right now, it’s only the best job in retail for Brian Niccol,” said Jasmine Leli, a three-year Starbucks barista and strike captain from Buffalo, New York. Leli said starting pay for baristas in most states is $15.25 per hour.

The strike would echo previous labor actions against the company. In 2023, thousands of Starbucks workers at more than 200 stores walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores.

In her letter, Kelly emphasized that most company-owned stores as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like airports will remain open if there is a strike.