Global markets fell like dominoes on Monday. Japan's Nikkei index was the first to plunge, suffering its biggest rout since the 1987 Black Monday crash. The stock exchanges in Europe and the United States followed, triggering a selloff that further fueled fears about the broader economy. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq sank by 2.6 percent, 3 percent, and 3.4 percent respectively at the closing bell. During trading hours, Wall Street’s fear gauge, the VIX, soared to the highest level since 2020.

Recession fears were the primary driver of the stock market selloff. Domestic financial markets have been in a slump since the Aug. 1 trading session, when a pair of manufacturing reports showed a sector in contraction.

The July jobs report revealed a smaller-than-expected 114,000 new jobs and a higher-than-expected 4.3 percent unemployment rate, which triggered the Sahm Rule. This is a key indicator that suggests the country might be in the early months of a recession when the three-month unemployment moving average rises 0.5 percentage points above the 12-month low.

In a landmark legal decision, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust laws by maintaining its monopoly power in the markets for general search services and general search text advertisements. Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google “is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.”

The ruling, issued on Aug. 5, concludes a lengthy legal battle initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of state attorneys general. Filed in October 2020, the case alleged that the tech giant engaged in anti-competitive practices by establishing exclusive agreements with browser developers, mobile device manufacturers, and wireless carriers.

Google said in a statement to The Epoch Times that “this decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available.” “Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal,” Kent Walker, president of Google Global Affairs, said in the emailed statement.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed was forced to resign and flee the country following local civil unrest. Hasina, 76, was the longest-serving female head of government and was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote that her main opponents boycotted.

Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, the chief of Bangladesh’s Army Staff and the country’s top military official, announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised news conference. The military announced the formation of an interim government. The mass uprisings were preceded by a crackdown on the local population that allegedly included the murder of protesters by military police.

Thousands of opposition members were jailed in the lead-up to the polls, and the U.S. government denounced the result as not credible, although the Bangladesh government defended it. Hasina’s apparent resignation and departure from the country follows weeks of deadly clashes between Bangladeshi military forces and demonstrators who have protested her government’s quota system reserving a percentage of government jobs for relatives of war veterans.

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