The US Department of Justice is considering breaking up Google, according to reports from Bloomberg, the New York Times and others.

Last week, a federal court in the US ruled the tech giant had broken antitrust law by spending billions on creating an illegal monopoly and becoming the world’s default search engine.

The ruling is seen as the first big win for authorities taking on the dominance of Big Tech.

The Department of Justice’s other options include forcing Alphabet’s Google to share data with competitors and instating measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, the reports said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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Breaking off the Android operating system, AdWords, Google’s search ad program, or the Chrome web browser are all options being discussed, according to the reports.

Meta, Amazon and Apple have all had legal action brought against them by antitrust regulators in the past four years for their domination of their markets.

Microsoft had settled with the Department of Justice in 2004 on claims it forced its Internet Explorer Web browser on Windows users.

Google and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Some of the biggest social media platforms are failing to detect and remove dangerous suicide and self-harm content, according to a study.

The Molly Rose Foundation found that of more than 12 million content moderation decisions made by six of the biggest platforms, over 95% of them were detected and removed by only two sites – Pinterest and TikTok.

The other four platforms that featured in the report were Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and X, formerly Twitter.

The foundation said it found the response of most platforms to such content was “inconsistent, uneven and unfit for purpose”.

The charity said Meta’s Instagram and Facebook were each responsible for 1% of all suicide and self-harm content detected by the major sites studied, and X is responsible for just 700 content decisions.

The foundation is now warning that the Online Safety Act does not go far enough to address what it says are clear systematic failures in the content moderation approach of social media firms.

Ian Russell, the charity’s chairman, has urged the government to commit to a new Online Safety Bill that can further strengthen regulation.

Mr Russell and his family set up the Molly Rose Foundation in memory of his daughter, Molly, who ended her life at age 14, in November 2017, after viewing harmful content on social media.

“Almost seven years after Molly died, it’s shocking to see most major tech companies continue to sit on their hands and choose inaction over saving young lives,” Mr Russell said.

“As the last few weeks have shown, it’s abundantly clear that much more ambitious regulation is required.

“That’s why it’s time for the new government to finish the job and commit to a strengthened Online Safety Act.

“Parents across the country will be rightly appalled that the likes of Instagram and Facebook promise warm words but continue to expose children to inherently preventable harm.

“No ifs, no buts, it’s clear that assertive action is required.”

In its report, the foundation said it had found that social media sites were routinely failing to detect harmful content on the highest risk parts of its services.

For example, it said only one in 50 suicide and self-harm posts detected by Instagram were videos, despite the short-form video feature Reels now accounting for half of all time spent on the app.

The study also accused sites of failing to enforce their own rules, noting that while TikTok detected almost three million items of suicide and self-harm content, it suspended only two accounts.

The research was based on content moderation decisions made in the EU, which are required to be made publicly accessible.

In response to the study, a Meta spokesperson said: “Content that encourages suicide and self-injury breaks our rules.

“We don’t believe the statistics in this report reflect our efforts. In the last year alone, we removed 50.6m pieces of this kind of content on Facebook and Instagram globally, and 99% was actioned before it was reported to us.

“However, in the EU we aren’t currently able to deploy all of our measures that run in the UK and the rest of the world.”

A spokesperson for Snapchat said: “The safety and wellbeing of our community is a top priority. Snapchat was designed to be different to other platforms, with no open newsfeed of unvetted content, and content moderation prior to public distribution.

“We strictly prohibit content that promote or encourage self-harm or suicide, and if we identify this, or it is reported to us, we remove it swiftly and take appropriate action.

“We also share self-harm prevention and support resources when we become aware of a member of our community in distress, and can notify emergency services when appropriate.

“We also continue to work closely with Ofcom on implementing the Online Safety Act, including the protections for children against these types of harm.”

TikTok did not provide a statement but said its rules were clear that it did not allow showing, promoting or sharing plans for suicide or self-harm.

A Department for Science, Innovation and Technology spokesperson said: “Social media companies have a clear responsibility to keep the people using their platforms safe and their processes to do so must be effective.

“Under the Online Safety Act, those who encourage self-harm with intent currently face up to five years in prison. Once the Act is fully implemented platforms will also have to proactively remove illegal content that encourages serious self-harm and stop children seeing material promoting self-harm or suicide, even when it falls below the criminal threshold.

“We want to get these new protections in place as soon as possible, but companies should not wait for laws to come into force – they must take effective action to protect all users now.”

Pinterest and X have not responded to a request for comment.

NASA has said it has still not decided how to bring home two astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) after their spacecraft developed faults on their outward voyage.

In a news conference on Wednesday, the space agency said Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who arrived at the ISS in June expecting to be there for eight days, may yet have to stay until February.

The astronauts arrived there on a Boeing Starliner – the first crew to use the craft.

But the vessel suffered thruster failures and helium leaks en route, raising doubts about whether it could carry them back to Earth safely – leaving the pair in space limbo.

The thrusters are crucial for holding the capsule in the right position when it comes time to descend from orbit.

If NASA decides not to use the Starliner, which Boeing has said is able to return them safely, they would catch a ride on SpaceX’s next flight, which would mean staying at the space station until next Februar.

But by that point, they will have been in space for eight months.

NASA’s space operations mission chief Ken Bowersox told reporters they are analysing more data before making a decision – either by the end of next week or the beginning of the next.

He said: “We’ve got time available before we bring Starliner home and we want to use that time wisely.”

Switching to SpaceX would also involve standing down two of the four astronauts due to be on board the SpaceX flight, currently scheduled for late September.

Wilmore and Williams would take the empty seats in SpaceX’s Dragon capsule once that half-year mission ends.

NASA’s safety chief Russ DeLoach added: “We don’t have enough insight and data to make some sort of simple, black-and-white calculation.”

Mr DeLoach said the space agency wants to make room for all opinions, unlike what happened on NASA’s two shuttle tragedies, Challenger and Columbia, when dissenting views were ignored.

“That may mean, at times, we don’t move very fast because we’re getting everything out, and I think you can kind of see that at play here,” he said.

One complication is that the space suits they used to travel to the ISS on Starliner would not be suitable on the SpaceX craft, if it’s used to take them home, meaning they may have to return to Earth suitless.

The BBC, quoting Joel Montalbano, NASA’s deputy associate administrator, said: “They would come unsuited in the [SpaceX] Crew Dragon.”

Another problem is that the space station has just two parking places for US craft, so Boeing’s capsule would have to leave before the SpaceX Dragon arrived in order to free up a spot.

Wilmore and Williams are retired navy captains who spent months aboard the space station years ago, been helping with experiments and repairs since they arrived.

NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba said: “They will do what we ask them to do. That’s their job as astronauts.

“This mission is a test flight and as Butch and Suni expressed ahead of their launch, they knew this mission might not be perfect.”

The world’s only self-driving taxi company has been forced to fix a fleet of cars after residents complained about their constant honking.

Waymo’s autonomous cars arrived in a car park in San Francisco, California, a few weeks ago, where they wait between jobs.

However, the cars were installed with an update that made them beep their horns whenever another car reversed close to them.

Christopher Cherry, who lives next to the car park, told Sky’s US partner NBC Bay Area he was “really excited” to have Waymo in the neighbourhood when they moved in, thinking it would bring more security and quiet to the area.

Instead, the taxis beeped at each other right through the night as they parked or set off on a journey, making it hard to sleep.

“We started out with a couple of honks here and there, and then as more and more cars started to arrive, the situation got worse,” Mr Cherry said.

“The cars are robotic and they’re honking at each other and there’s no one in the cars when it’s happening, and that’s absurd.”

One resident got so irate that she started livestreaming the car park on YouTube, gathering tens of thousands of views on some of her videos.

“Help,” says Sophia Tung at the end of one of her videos where the cars can be heard beeping late at night.

Mr Cherry said the honking happens daily at different levels, with the most intense honking occurring at around 4am and at evening rush hour times.

“It’s very distracting during the work day, but most importantly it wakes you up at four in the morning,” he said.

The cars appear to head off to their charging depot at around 4am – a “parade” of autonomous taxis that caused great anticipation on the YouTube livestream.

Hundreds of viewers eagerly waited for the cars to start leaving on Wednesday morning.

“​​It’s starting, everyone,” said one viewer. “Parade time!” said another.

Ms Tung’s viewers have even made a Google spreadsheet with timecodes for the most interesting moments in the car park, such as excessive honking or a fun bit of parking by one of the cars.

‘We didn’t quite anticipate’

The taxi firm, which is owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said the honking problem is now fixed.

“We recently introduced a useful feature to help avoid low-speed collisions by honking if other cars get too close while reversing toward us,” said a Waymo spokesperson to Sky News.

“It has been working great in the city, but we didn’t quite anticipate it would happen so often in our own parking lots.

“We’ve updated the software, so our electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbours moving forward,” they said.

As the cars left their car park at 4am on Wednesday, the honking did indeed appear to be solved.

Ms Tung confirmed to her hundreds of live viewers in the chat: “They didn’t honk”.