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President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped Gail Slater, an antitrust veteran and economic adviser for JD Vance, to lead the Department of Justice’s antitrust division and take charge of a full docket of blockbuster monopoly cases against companies including Google, Visa and Apple.

Slater is expected to continue the department’s crackdown on Big Tech, including cases brought during Trump’s first term in the White House, Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.

“Big Tech has run wild for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech!” Trump said.

Slater served on the White House’s National Economic Council in 2018, where she worked on Trump’s executive order on national security concerns over Chinese telecommunications equipment.

Before joining Vance’s office, Slater worked at Fox Corp. and Roku.

Vance, the vice president-elect, has said antitrust officials should take a broader approach to antitrust enforcement, and praised the work of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.

Slater grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and began her law career in London at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which brought her to Washington.

She spent 10 years at the FTC, first as an antitrust attorney where she brought cases to block mergers including Whole Foods’ acquisition of organic grocer Wild Oats, and later as an adviser to then-commissioner Julie Brill, who later became an executive at Microsoft.

Slater also represented Big Tech companies including Amazon and Google at a now-defunct trade group called the Internet Association.

She is still viewed as an antitrust hawk among Washington tech skeptics, who welcomed her appointment.

Garrett Ventry, a former adviser to Republicans in Congress and founder of GRV Strategies, said Slater’s nomination shows Trump is “serious about taking on Big Tech.”

“Antitrust enforcement is here to stay,” Ventry said.

The Tech Oversight project, a group that backed the work of Biden’s DOJ antitrust chief, Jonathan Kanter, said the nomination shows antitrust has staying power as a bipartisan political issue.

“Gail Slater is a strong candidate to continue that work,” said Sacha Haworth, the group’s executive director.

Slater will take over a number of high-profile cases in which some of the world’s largest companies are accused of illegally building and protecting monopolies.

Trump said Slater will “ensure that our competition laws are enforced, both vigorously and FAIRLY, with clear rules that facilitate, rather than stifle, the ingenuity of our greatest companies.”

The appointment would put Slater in charge of the DOJ’s bid to make Google sell off its Chrome browser and take other measures to curb its dominance in online search.

The DOJ filed the case in 2020, during the first Trump administration. But the proposals for fixes came under Kanter.

The judge overseeing the case has said Trump officials will not get extra time to reevaluate the proposals ahead of an April trial.

Google faces a second battle with the DOJ over its online advertising technology, while Apple faces allegations that it monopolized the US smartphone market.

Kanter also filed the DOJ’s first case alleging algorithmic price fixing against property management software company RealPage.

In another case, the DOJ is seeking to break up LiveNation and TicketMaster over practices that prosecutors say harm eventgoers and artists.

Slater would have wide latitude over the cases, though most are also being pursued by bipartisan state coalitions.

A case the DOJ brought in September alleging Visa unlawfully dominates the market for debit card payment processing does not involve state antitrust regulators.

Slater would also be in a position to continue or end probes, such as an investigation into Nvidia, the chip company that rode the artificial intelligence boom to become one of the world’s most valuable companies.

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What’s behind Starmer’s reset?

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What's behind Starmer's reset?

👉Listen to Politics At Sam And Anne’s on your podcast app👈       

As MPs return to Westminster for a packed autumn term, will the prime minister be back with a bang?

Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy discuss Keir Starmer’s priorities as the so-called “reset week” begins.

There’s chatter around No 10 of a staffing restructure but could this impact the government’s message and delivery of its missions?

Back in the Commons, the home secretary will lay out the government’s plans to restrict family members from joining asylum seekers.

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UK

‘My dad could still be here’, says daughter of Bhim Kohli, 80, killed by children in Leicestershire park attack

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'My dad could still be here', says daughter of Bhim Kohli, 80, killed by children in Leicestershire park attack

The daughter of a man who was killed by two children has told Sky News “there is a possibility” he could have still been alive if police had taken anti-social behaviour reports more seriously.

Susan Kohli has spoken to The UK Tonight With Sarah-Jane Mee about what she says were failures by the Leicestershire force, leading up to the death of her 80-year-old father Bhim Kohli near Leicester in September 2024.

Mr Kohli was racially abused and physically attacked just yards from his home as he walked his dog in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town. He suffered a broken neck and fractured ribs, and died in hospital the next day.

Susan Kohli
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Susan Kohli

Susan Kohli is critical of how Leicestershire Police dealt with earlier reports of anti-social behaviour in the area in July and August 2024, before the attack on her father. The force said it did not identify misconduct or missed opportunities, which could have prevented Mr Kohli’s death.

In one of the cases, Ms Kohli said her father faced abusive and racist comments and was spat at. Although the incident in August was not related to her father’s death, she believes a stronger police response could have deterred her dad’s killers.

“Why is it that they’re not taking these things seriously? Are they just waiting for something to happen? Because that’s literally what it looks and feels like.

“They waited for someone to lose their life before they took any stance. If they had arrested these two boys prior to that incident on the 1st of September, there is a possibility my dad could still be here,” she said.

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A boy, who was 14 at the time of the attack, and a girl, who was 12, denied their part in the killing but were found guilty of manslaughter at Leicester Crown Court in April. The pair cannot be named because of their age.

Jurors heard the boy kicked and punched Mr Kohli – encouraged by the girl who recorded parts of the attack while laughing.

Susan Kohli told Sarah-Jane Mee she felt the children's sentences were too lenient
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Susan Kohli told Sarah-Jane Mee she felt the children’s sentences were too lenient

Ms Kohli said she felt their sentences were too lenient after the boy received seven years’ detention while the girl was given a three-year youth rehabilitation order.

We need the sentencing guidelines to be looked at, whether it’s a child or an adult, they know what they are doing at that age.

“Why is it that because they are a child that they get half the sentence of an adult? He’s going to be out in three and a half years or even less. How is that justice for taking somebody’s life? But that’s not justice at all. They’ve given us a life sentence.”

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Daughter’s anger over child killers

In August, the Court of Appeal ruled the boy’s sentence will not be changed, saying it was neither unduly lenient nor manifestly excessive.

Solicitor General Lucy Rigby had referred the sentence to the court under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. The girl’s sentence was not referred to the Court of Appeal.

Read more from Sky News:
Retired vicar jailed for three years
Camilla told Boris of train attack
Sir Keir Starmer reshuffles team

Leicestershire Police told Sky News that, due to prior police contact with Mr Kohli, the force referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

The force found that proportionate and reasonable lines of enquiry were followed and concluded that no misconduct or missed opportunities which could have prevented Mr Kohli’s death were identified.

Chief Superintendent Jonathan Starbuck said: “The death of Bhim Kohli is an extremely shocking, traumatic and upsetting incident and our thoughts, sorrow and sympathies continue to remain with Mr Kohli’s family and friends.

“We know that anti-social behaviour has a huge impact on people’s lives. Preventing and addressing incidents and community concerns is of the utmost importance to our force in order to ensure the safety of our residents. This is something we continue to work on, address and to make ongoing improvements wherever we can.

“Through our own local investigation, following direction by the IOPC, we also identified organisational learning in relation to improving our system of logging and tagging anti-social behaviour incidents.”

An IOPC spokesperson said: “We agreed with Leicestershire Police’s finding that police officers did proactively investigate matters reported to them and there was nothing to indicate any officers or police staff committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner justifying disciplinary proceedings.

“And we agreed with learning identified by the force in respect of accurately recording and tagging incidents of anti-social behaviour (ASB), thus ensuring incidents can be dealt with appropriately and to support the long-term management and deterrence of ASB.”

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Politics

What to expect with US crypto policy as Congress comes back in session

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What to expect with US crypto policy as Congress comes back in session

What to expect with US crypto policy as Congress comes back in session

According to some Republican lawmakers, the first crypto-related priority in the Senate will be to pass legislation for market structure.

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