COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s Republican-dominated Senate and its elected Republican treasurer faced off Monday in an extraordinary hearing as senators try to kick state treasurer Curtis Loftis out of office over a $1.8 billion accounting error.

The hearing is the culmination of over two years of investigation by the Senate that started when state accountants unintentionally exaggerated money given to colleges and universities by $3.5 billion.

That led to the discovery of an account error that started a decade ago when the state was changing from one accounting system to another. If accountants couldn’t balance the entries in the two sets of books as they moved thousand of accounts with different definitions, they kept adding it to a special account year after year until it grew to $1.8 billion.

It took forensic accountants, who were paid millions of dollars in fees, to finally unravel that nearly all of the $1.8 billion was not real money but just an accumulation of errors.

The two Republican senators calling for Loftis to be kicked out of office said he can no longer be trusted to handle South Carolina’s bank accounts. They charged that he is incompetent and never reported the mistakes to lawmakers as required by law while refusing to take accountability.

“He’s a liar that was so concerned with his public appearance that he would do and say anything to cover up his mistake,” Sen. Stephen Goldfinch said.

Loftis has called the Senate investigation a witch hunt. He repeatedly said no money went missing and the errors were not made in his office, although others have testified differently. The treasurer said continuing to focus on the mistakes threatens the state’s strong credit rating.

His lawyer Deborah Barbier opened the treasurer’s three-hour case with a photo of Loftis and Republican President Donald Trump on a screen. She pointed out that he has won election four times and will face voters again in a primary in 14 months. Loftis has previously said he would not run for reelection.

“The people don’t want to be told that you are better than them,” Barbier said from a temporary lectern at the back of the state Senate chamber. “Let issues like this be decided at the ballot box.”

Senators can ask questions at the end of the hearing. The Senate would need a two-thirds vote to decide Loftis committed “willful neglect of duty” and send the matter to the House, which must also hold its own two-thirds vote to remove the treasurer.

Thirty-one of the 40 senators present on Monday will have to vote against Loftis to keep the process going.

No office holder has been removed in this way since South Carolina became a state 225 years ago.

Republican leaders in the House have given no indication whether they will take up the matter.

The books still haven’t been fully straightened out, and accountants continue to struggle with Loftis’ office and how they handle the state’s bank accounts, Grooms said.

The treasurer is trying anything to protect his 14 years in office and reputation as a competent conservative steward who is always looking out for taxpayers, Grooms said.

“Because of his failures, the self-proclaimed best friend of the taxpayer is costing the taxpayers tens of millions in legal, auditing and oversight fees,” Grooms said. “With friends like this, who needs tax-and-spend liberals.”

A Senate subcommittee held hearings to question Loftis under oath. They have been contentious. Loftis has slammed papers, accused senators of a witch hunt and threatened to get up and leave.

He did not show any outward signs of frustration or anger as the hearing started Monday.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Google is confronting an existential threat as the U.S. government tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into an illegal monopoly.

The drama began to unfold Monday in a Washington courtroom as three weeks of hearings kicked off to determine how the company should be penalized for operating a monopoly in search. In its opening arguments, federal antitrust enforcers also urged the court to impose forward-looking remedies to prevent Google from using artificial intelligence to further its dominance.

“This is a moment in time, we’re at an inflection point, will we abandon the search market and surrender them to control of the monopolists or will we let competition prevail and give choice to future generations,” said Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist.

The proceedings, known in legal parlance as a “remedy hearing,” are set to feature a parade of witnesses that includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition, share its repository of valuable user data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser.

Google’s attorney, John Schmidtlein, said in his opening statement that the court should take a much lighter touch. He said the government’s heavy-handed proposed remedies wouldn’t boost competition but instead unfairly reward lesser rivals with inferior technology.

“Google won its place in the market fair and square,” Schmidtlein said.

The moment of reckoning comes four-and-a-half-years after the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit alleging Google’s search engine had been abusing its power as the internet’s main gateway to stifle competition and innovation for more than a decade.

After the case finally went to trial in 2023, a federal judge last year ruled Google had been making anti-competitive deals to lock in its search engine as the go-to place for digital information on the iPhone, personal computers and other widely used devices, including those running on its own Android software.

That landmark ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sets up a high-stakes drama that will determine the penalties for Google’s misconduct in a search market that it has defined since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

Since that austere start, Google has expanded far beyond search to become a powerhouse in email, digital mapping, online video, web browsing, smartphone software and data centers.

Seizing upon its victory in the search case, the Justice Department is now setting out to prove that radical steps must be taken to rein in Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

“Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that — no matter what occurs — Google always wins,” the Justice Department argued in documents outlining its proposed penalties. “The American people thus are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting, ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in return for a search engine the public may enjoy.”

Although the proposed penalties were originally made under President Joe Biden’s term, they are still being embraced by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump, whose first administration filed the case against Google. Since the change in administrations, the Justice Department has also attempted to cast Google’s immense power as a threat to freedom, too.

In his opening statement, Dahlquist noted that top officials from the Justice Department were in the room to watch proceedings. He said their presence indicated that the case had the full support of federal antitrust regulators, both past and present.

“The fact that this case was filed in 2020, tried in 2023, under two different administrations, and joined by 49 states demonstrates the non-partisan nature of this case and our proposed remedies,” Dahlquist said.

Dahlquist also said that Mehta would be hearing a lot about AI — “perhaps more than you want, your honor,” — and said top executives from AI companies, like ChatGPT, would be called to testify. He said the court’s remedies should include provisions to make sure that Google’s AI product, Gemini, isn’t used to strengthen its existing search monopoly.

“We believe that Google can and will attempt to circumvent the court’s remedies if it is not included,” Dahlquist said. “Gen AI is Google’s next evolution to keep their vicious cycle spinning.”

Schmidtlein, Google’s attorney, said rival AI companies had seen enormous growth in recent years and were doing “just fine.”

Google is also sounding alarms about the proposed requirements to share online search data with rivals and the proposed sale of Chrome posing privacy and security risks. “The breadth and depth of the proposed remedies risks doing significant damage to a complex ecosystem. Some of the proposed remedies would imperil browser developers and jeopardize the digital security of millions of consumers,” Google lawyers said in a filing leading up to hearings.

The showdown over Google’s fate marks the climax of the biggest antitrust case in the U.S. since the Justice Department sued Microsoft in the late 1990s for leveraging its Windows software for personal computers to crush potential rivals.

The Microsoft battle culminated in a federal judge declaring the company an illegal monopoly and ordering a partial breakup — a remedy that was eventually overturned by an appeals court.

Google intends to file an appeal of Mehta’s ruling from last year that branded its search engine as an illegal monopoly but can’t do so until the remedy hearings are completed. After closing arguments are presented in late May, Mehta intends to make his decision on the remedies before Labor Day.

The search case marked the first in a succession of antitrust cases that have been brought against a litany of tech giants that include Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, which is currently fighting allegations of running an illegal monopoly in social media in another Washington D.C. trial. Other antitrust cases have been brought against both Apple and Amazon, too.

The Justice Department also targeted Google’s digital advertising network in a separate antitrust case that resulted last week in another federal judge’s decision that found the company was abusing its power in that market, too. That ruling means Google will be heading into another remedy hearing that could once again raise the specter of a breakup later this year or early next year.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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While there is no silver bullet for healthy aging, there are habits that can help you age well—especially when it comes to what you eat. 

In a 30-year study, researchers found that a certain diet was associated with healthy aging, defined as reaching the age of 70 without any major chronic health conditions, an intact memory, strong mental health, and the physical ability to move freely and climb stairs. Of the over 105,000 people studied, just one in ten were considered healthy agers—and they all had one thing in common: a diet rich in plant-based foods, low in highly processed foods, with a moderate intake of animal-based products. 

In the study, published last month in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers tracked how closely participants followed a slew of healthy diets. While adhering to any of the diets, including the Mediterranean and Planetary Health diets, increased the chances of healthy aging, the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) was the most influential in improving people’s odds of maintaining strong mental and physical health at age 70. 

Those who adhered most strictly to the AHEI diet had an 86% higher chance of living to 70 without major chronic conditions compared to those who adhered to the diet the least. People who were the most loyal to the AHEI diet also had a 2.24 times greater chance of living healthfully at age 75 compared to those in the lowest quartile of adherence to the diet. This is especially relevant as 80% of older adults have more than one chronic condition, which increases the risk of early mortality.

“Our findings suggest that dietary patterns rich in plant-based foods, with moderate inclusion of healthy animal-based foods, may enhance overall healthy aging, guiding future dietary guidelines,” the researchers conclude. “The AHEI was also the most strongly associated with maintaining intact physical function and mental health among individual healthy aging domains.”

What is the AHEI diet?

The AHEI diet, developed by Harvard scientists, was created to lower the risk of chronic conditions and emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes. The diet limits intake of animal products and discourages highly processed and sweetened foods, such as juice. 

Previous research has shown the benefits of plant-based diets rich in whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and legumes. The residents of the world’s blue zones, where people reportedly live the longest, are celebrated for eating a minimally processed diet. The “three sisters,” or food staples, of the blue zone, Nicoya, Costa Rica, for example, are squash, corn, and beans. 

The study used data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study to track individuals between the ages of 39 and 69 over a 30-year period. It contributes to research on how diet influences not only how long you live, but also how long you live in optimal health. 

For more on aging and nutrition: 

• The 4 foods that science says can help you live to 100
• This dietician warns of one major issue with American diets. Here are her 4 tips to fix it
• An essential predictor of happiness is often overlooked, according to a global study

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com