By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to protect Google from a year-old order requiring a major makeover of its Android app store that’s designed to unleash more competition against a system that a jury declared an illegal monopoly.

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The rebuff delivered in a one-sentence decision by the Supreme Court means Google will soon have to start an overhaul of its Play Store for the apps running on the Android software that powers most smartphones that compete against Apple’s iPhone in the U.S.

Among other changes, U.S. District Judge James Donato last October ordered Google to give its competitors access to its entire inventory of Android apps and also make those alternative options available to download from the Play Store.

In a filing last month, Google told the U.S. Supreme Court that Donato’s order would expose the Play Store’s more than 100 million U.S. users to “enormous security and safety risks by enabling stores that stock malicious, deceptive, or pirated content to proliferate.”

Google also said it faced an Oct. 22 deadline to begin complying with the judge’s order if the Supreme Court didn’t grant its request for a stay. The Mountain View, California, company was seeking the protection while pursuing a last-ditch attempt to overturn the December 2023 jury verdict that condemned the Play Store as an abusive monopoly.

In a statement, Google said it will continue its fight in the Supreme Court while submitting to what it believes is a problematic order. “The changes ordered by the U.S. District Court will jeopardize users’ ability to safely download apps,” Google warned.

Google had been insulated from the order while trying to overturn it and the monopoly verdict, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that attempt in a decision issued two months ago.

In its filing with the Supreme Court, Google argued it was being unfairly turned into a supplier and distributor for would-be rivals.

Donato concluded the digital walls shielding the Play Store from competition needed to be torn down to counteract a pattern of abusive behavior. The conduct had enabled Google to to reap billions of dollars in annual profits, primarily from its exclusive control of a payment processing system that collected a 15-30% fee on in-app transactions.

Those commissions were the focal point of an antitrust lawsuit that video game maker Epic Games filed against Google in 2020, setting up a month-long trial in San Francisco federal court that culminated in the jury’s monopoly verdict.

Epic, the maker of the Fortnite game, lost a similar antitrust case targeting Apple’s iPhone app store. Even though U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rodgers concluded the iPhone app store wasn’t an illegal monopoly, she ordered Apple to begin allowing links to alternative payment systems as part of a shake-up that resulted in the company being held in civil contempt of court earlier this year.

In a post, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney applauded the Supreme Court for clearing the way for consumers to choose alternative app payment choices “without fees, scare screens, and friction.”

Although the Play Store changes will likely dent Google’s profit, the company makes most of its money from a digital ad network that’s anchored by its dominant search engine — the pillars of an internet empire that has been under attack on other legal fronts.

As part of cases brought by the U.S. Justice Department, both Google’s search engine and parts of its advertising technology were declared illegal monopolies, too.

A federal judge in the search engine case earlier this year rejected a proposed break-up outlined by the Justice Department i n a decision that was widely seen as a reprieve for Google. The government is now seeking to break up Google in the advertising technology case during proceedings that are scheduled to wrap up with closing arguments on Nov. 17 in Alexandria, Virginia.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyers want the hip-hop mogul sent to a low-security federal prison in New Jersey to serve his four-year, two-month prison sentence, telling a judge Monday that the facility’s drug treatment program will help him stay clean.

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In a letter, Combs’ lawyers urged the judge presiding over his case, Arun Subramanian, to “strongly recommend” that the federal Bureau of Prisons place Combs at FCI Fort Dix, a massive prison located on the grounds of the joint military base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

FCI Fort Dix, one of several dozen federal prisons with a residential drug treatment program, will best allow Combs “to address drug abuse issues and to maximize family visitation and rehabilitative efforts,” Combs lawyer Teny Geragos wrote.

Also Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters that Combs had asked him for a pardon. Trump, referring to Combs by the nickname “Puff Daddy,” did not say if he would grant the request. A message seeking comment on Trump’s remarks was left for Combs’ lawyers and his publicity team.

Combs’ sentencing Friday on charges he transported people across state lines for sexual encounters capped a federal case that featured harrowing testimony about violence, drugs and so-called “freak-offs,” and exposed the sordid private life of one of the most influential figures in music.

The “I’ll Be Missing You” singer was convicted in July under the federal Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for any sexual crime. His trial ended in a split verdict, with acquittals on sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life.

Combs has been locked up at a Brooklyn federal jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, since his arrest in September 2024. That time will be subtracted from his sentence, meaning he could get out in about three years.

Subramanian has not yet acted on the request to place him at FCI Fort Dix.

Judges often make recommendations about where inmates should serve time, but it’s ultimately up to the Bureau of Prisons to decide. Those decisions, the agency has said, are based on a variety of factors, including the severity of the offense, the required security level and an inmate’s programming needs.

FCI Fort Dix, the largest single federal prison by population with just under 3,900 inmates, is about 64 miles southwest of New York City, where Combs was born and rose to fame as a rapper and entrepreneur in an array of businesses, including fashion, television and liquor. An adjacent minimum-security prison camp has 210 inmates.

The facility has been home to a number of high-profile inmates over the years, including mobsters, corrupt politicians and “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli. For a time, it was run by the warden who had been in charge of a Manhattan federal jail when financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself at the jail in 2019. That warden, Lamine N’Diaye, has since retired.

In 2021, a 27-year-old Fort Dix inmate was stabbed in the eyeball by a fellow prisoner.

In 2019, a Fort Dix inmate, a former inmate and two other people were arrested for using a drone to smuggle in contraband including cellphones, tobacco, weight-loss supplements and eyeglasses. The same year, a Fort Dix correctional officer pleaded guilty in a separate case to pocketing bribes to smuggle in contraband.

During his time at Fort Dix, Shkreli ended up in solitary confinement amid allegations he was using a contraband smartphone to run his drug company from behind bars. Inmates are forbidden from conducting business and possessing cellphones.

By VÍCTOR CAIVANO and RAMIRO BARREIRO

PENÍNSULA VALDÉS, Argentina (AP) — After coming back from the brink of extinction, Southern right whales are swimming in greater numbers off the coast of Argentina’s Patagonia this year, delighting tourists seeking to catch a glimpse of their acrobatics.

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Peninsula Valdés, located in the Patagonian province of Chubut, is globally important for the conservation of marine mammals and is home to a key breeding population of Southern right whales — once an endangered species — as well as elephant seals and sea lions.

“I’ve seen whales in Canada and California, but this was the best and probably the largest number of whales I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Tino Ventz, a German tourist who recently visited the peninsula with his girlfriend.

The Southern right whale was nearly exterminated by hunting expeditions up until the last century. Before large-scale whaling began, the population in southern waters was estimated at around 100,000, before it was decimated to about 600. Since then, it has slowly recovered to roughly 4,700 whales around Peninsula Valdés today.

Whale-watching season in the south American country peaks between August and September. This year, more than 2,000 whales have been spotted, though the actual number is likely higher, scientists say.

Ventz, 24, and his partner joined Argentine Andrea Delfino and her children on a boat trip. Southern winds stirred the whales into more acrobatic breaching, a spectacle that leaves an indelible impression on those who witness it.

Other tourists preferred to watch the whales from the shore, as is common in neighboring Brazil or Uruguay.

Watching from the beach, Agustina Guidolín, fulfilled her dream of witnessing “the immensity that borders on the magical and the wild.” The tourists were at El Doradillo Park, a protected natural area in Puerto Madryn, where whales spend time close to shore with their young after giving birth.

In addition to Peninsula Valdés and other points in Patagonia, the whales’ migration route extends along Uruguay’s eastern coast and southern Brazil.

Santiago Fernández, a biologist with Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, is part of a project that since 1999 has carried out two to three aerial surveys each year along 400 miles of Patagonian coastline. This year’s count recorded 2,100 whales — 863 of them mothers with calves, and the rest solitary individuals.

A Southern Right Whale breaches off the coast of Puerto Piramides, Argentina, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

“We’re underestimating the number of whales in the area,” Fernández said of the census, noting that it represents only a snapshot, since whales move in and out of the same region as they migrate.

He explained that in 1999 “about 500 whales were counted along that same route,” and that “we’re currently seeing a 3% annual growth rate.”

Fernández added that another project, “Following Whales,” conducted by several national and international organizations, tracks individual whales via satellite telemetry within the San Matias Gulf to the north, the San Jorge Gulf to the south, and beyond, to better understand their routes.

From that project, which began in 2014, scientists learned that once the calves grow, the mothers lead them deeper into the gulfs — whales that are therefore not included in the aerial census.

The growing population is leading to a dispersal — especially of juveniles and mothers that have already calved — toward the San Matias and San Jorge gulfs, and even as far north as the coast of Buenos Aires province.

This expansion also brings the whales closer to risks posed by human activity, such as fishing nets and boat propellers, researchers have found, based on injuries suffered by whales unable to return to Antarctica at the end and beginning of their natural cycle.

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

By MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday ordered approval of a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

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The long-debated Ambler Road project was approved in Trump’s first term, but was later blocked by the Biden administration after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

The gravel road and mining project, north of Fairbanks, Alaska, “is something that should’ve been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals,” Trump said at an Oval Office ceremony. Former President Joe Biden “undid it and wasted a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of effort. And now we’re starting again. And this time we have plenty of time to get it done,” Trump added.

In a related development, the White House announced it is taking 10% equity stake in Trilogy Metals, a Canadian company that is seeking to develop the Ambler site along with an Australian partner.

The U.S. government said last week it is taking a minority stake in Lithium Americas, another Canadian company that is developing one of the world’s largest lithium mines in Nevada. The Department of Energy will take a 5% equity stake in the company and a 5% stake in the Thacker Pass lithium mining project, a joint venture with General Motors.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said approval of Ambler Road will unlock access to copper, cobalt and other critical minerals “that we need to win the AI arms race against China.”

The Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, where the Ambler Road project would pass through, is visible from Ambler, Alaska, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)

Supporters, including Alaska’s congressional delegation, have said the road is needed to reach a large copper deposit worth more than $7 billion. Copper is used in production of cars, electronics and even renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.

Opponents, including a consortium of 40 federally recognized tribes, worry that development allowed by the road would put subsistence harvests at risk because the lands include important habitat for salmon and caribou.

Karmen Monigold, an Inupiaq member of Protect the Kobuk, a Northwest Arctic advocacy group opposed to the access road, said she cried when she first learned of Trump’s actions. “And then I reminded myself of who we are, and who our people are and how far we’ve come,” she said Monday in a telephone interview. “They tried to assimilate us, to wipe us out and yet we’re still here. We still matter.”

Monigold said she hopes Alaska Native groups will file lawsuits, as they’ve done before, to halt the project.

The two-lane gravel road includes about 26 miles that would cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. The road would also cross 11 rivers and thousands of streams before reaching the site of a future mine.

The Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, where the Ambler Road project would pass through, is visible from Ambler, Alaska, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)

The Republican-controlled House approved a bill last month that would pave the way for Trump to expand mining and drilling on public lands in Alaska and other states. The vote, largely along party lines, would repeal land management plans adopted in the closing days of Biden’s administration that restricted development in large areas of Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.

Biden’s goal was in part to reduce climate-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels extracted from federal land. Under Trump, Republicans are casting aside those concerns as they open more taxpayer-owned land to development, hoping to create more jobs and revenue and boost fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. The administration also has pushed to develop critical minerals, including copper, cobalt, gold and zinc.

While Trump has often said, “drill, baby, drill,” he also supports “mine, baby, mine,” Burgum said. “We’ve got to get back in the mining business.”

Trump’s order finds that the proposed road is in the public interest, given U.S. needs for domestic critical minerals, and says there is no economically feasible alternative route.

The decision directs the federal Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reissue necessary permits to construct the road.

Tristen Pattee, an Inupiaq who serves as an environmental technical supervisor at Red Dog zinc mine near Kotzebue, Alaska, said approval of the road is long overdue.

“I’m excited for the opportunities that are going to be coming in and all the jobs that will be created,” he said. “I look forward to them responsibly building the road and making sure it’s operated as permitted.”

Ambler Metals, a joint venture between Trilogy Metals and Australia-based South32, thanked Trump for jump-starting the Ambler project.

“This road will help secure the critical minerals our country needs for economic competitiveness and national defense, while also delivering meaningful benefits here at home,” said managing director Kaleb Froehlich.

Associated Press writer Annika Hammerschlag in Seattle contributed to this story.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org