After finally recovering from a social media barrage of VR goggle mockery, Apple is about to enter a much bigger battle. The Justice Department joined 15 states and Washington, DC, in suing the tech giant over allegedly monopolistic practices, citing everything from Apple’s secretive tap-to-pay chip to its green text bubbles.

The 88-page suit is basically a greatest hits collection of every critic’s gripes with Apple. Highlights include:

The app store is back in the hot seat. The DOJ accused Apple of suppressing cloud-streaming apps for video games, and said the company’s policies have prevented competitors from creating “super apps.” Other companies (including Epic Games, in a very heated lawsuit) have long complained about Apple charging an exorbitant 30% commission on sales through its app store.

Its systems are under lock and key. The lawsuit also alleges that Apple purposefully makes it harder for iPhone owners to use products outside its ecosystem. And the DOJ pointed out that Apple is dragging its feet on letting Android users send messages with iMessage.

• Many tech entrepreneurs have tried to create workarounds, but Apple has shut them down.
• Apple did agree last year to update the quality of multimedia messages between iPhones and Androids.

Apple Pay or the highway. The DOJ claims that third-party developers cannot create digital wallets for iPhones, since the company has its own wallet software.

Apple denied the allegations. It historically has said its products and services are secretive in order to protect from malware and fraud.

What’s next? It will likely be years before we get a verdict on whether or not Apple needs to change any of these practices. In the meantime, the lawsuit means the DOJ, which promised to crack down on corporate monopolies, has now completed its punchcard of suing every Big Tech company (Amazon, Google, Meta, and now Apple) on antitrust grounds.—MM

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Congress unveiled a $1.2 trillion spending bill ahead of tonight’s shutdown deadline. Like you did with your senior year thesis, lawmakers turned in their lengthy federal funding package yesterday just under the wire—though it’s unclear if they’ll have time to vote on it to prevent parts of the government from shutting down at midnight tonight. The bipartisan bill includes, among other things, funding for border security and education programs, in an effort to appease both sides of the aisle. Republican leaders signaled that they intend to hold a vote today, waiving their self-imposed rule that legislators get 72 hours to review bills before they vote.

Disney’s proxy fight just got interesting. Nelson Peltz, the billionaire hedge fund manager and activist investor trying to gain seats on Disney’s board, won a key endorsement yesterday that could prove decisive in his bitter corporate battle against CEO Bob Iger. Advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended that Disney shareholders vote to elect Peltz at the company’s April 3 meeting, citing “the major missteps and severe consequences” of Disney’s recent succession debacle. Iger, who has the support of the Disney family, previously said the ISS recommendation played a critical role in the company’s last proxy fight 20 years ago.

⚕️ Man gets first-ever kidney transplant from pig. A 62-year-old man with end-stage kidney disease successfully received a kidney from a genetically engineered pig at a Boston hospital last weekend. The animal organ began fulfilling its function of producing urine shortly after the surgery, and the patient has reportedly been recovering well so far, per the New York Times. Biotech company eGenesis altered the DNA of the organ-donor pig to make its kidney more compatible with the human body and eliminate the risk of certain animal pathogen infections. The breakthrough offers promise for more than 100,000 Americans on kidney transplant waiting lists amid a human kidney shortage.

As the Los Angeles Dodgers won their season-opener in South Korea this week, news broke that the team fired Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter (and close friend) Ippei Mizuhara over allegations of theft related to an illegal gambling operation.

Here’s what we know about the situation that’s rattling the sports world:

• ESPN reported that, on Tuesday, Mizuhara said Ohtani himself sent $4.5 million to a bookmaker to pay off Mizuhara’s gambling debts.
• But on Wednesday, Ohtani’s lawyers said he didn’t make the payments, but that he was “the victim of a massive theft” by his interpreter.
• Later that day, Mizuhara changed his story. He told ESPN that Ohtani didn’t know about any of it and that he definitely did not transfer any money.

Mizuhara has emphasized that he did not bet on baseball, which doesn’t help much since betting on all sports is illegal in California. The MLB said Ohtani is not currently under investigation.

Big picture: The saga risks dinging Ohtani’s reputation in Japan, where he’s known as “the perfect person.” For the Dodgers, seeing his name in the same sentence as “illegal gambling” is not something they expected to kick off Ohtani’s new $700 million contract. The incident also puts another intense spotlight on the sports betting industry, as companies like FanDuel and DraftKings soar in popularity.—CC

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If you love Black Mirror, you’re probably gonna hate this: King chipmaker Nvidia announced this week that it’s partnered with healthcare startup Hippocratic AI to offer a roster of beautifully airbrushed, $9/hour “nurses” who could replace humans in areas of patient care that can be done virtually.

More than 40 healthcare providers are currently testing the tech, according to Gizmodo. Hippocratic’s vision for the AI bots includes…

• Non-diagnostic, patient-facing work that Hippocratic considers “low risk,” like post-op check-ins, nutritional guidance, or pharmacy calls.
• Offsetting years-long nursing shortages in the US while saving healthcare providers money on human salaries. (Many public health experts and nurses say cost-cutting is what caused staff shortages in the first place.)

In a demo video from Nvidia, a “GenAI Healthcare Agent” named Rachel (pictured above) conducts a post-appendectomy follow-up with someone acting as a patient, and is shown asking and answering case-specific questions in real time.

Zoom out: Because Big Tech has been outspending venture capital groups on all the hot AI startups, VCs are investing in industry-specific AI projects—like Hippocratic, which was just valued at $500 million after a funding round that included Andreessen Horowitz.—ML

Stat: Luckily, the latest Gen Z trend is much easier to understand than “Livvy just rizzed up Baby Gronk, the new Drip King.” Young people have apparently been very into “poking” each other on Facebook, ever since a design change earlier this year made the button more visible to users. Pokes have increased 13x since the change, Meta announced, more than half by users aged 18 to 29—some of whom were not alive when the feature was introduced in 2004. Facebook has never specified what the poke is for: Many use it to say hello, others to digitally flirt or annoy their enemies. Whether zoomers are poking ironically or if they genuinely enjoy the feature, Meta likely doesn’t care as long as it boosts engagement with the coveted demographic.

Quote: “Keep your filthy hands off of Trump Tower!”

Donald Trump’s team has been texting supporters in all caps to let them know he’s in a bind, asking them to chip in some cash before New York Attorney General Letitia James begins seizing his properties over a failure to pay a $464 million bond stemming from his NYC civil fraud trial. The urgent plea comes after dozens of companies refused to spot the former president the dough, fearing he might lose his appeal. State officials are reportedly gearing up to snatch his assets, including a golf course and a posh estate, if he doesn’t find sponsors by Monday.

Read: Hackers figured out how to open millions of hotel keycard locks. (Wired)

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to picking all the college basketball upsets correctly yesterday.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.