Gamescom: Cloud gaming turns industry inside out

A Russian regulator has given Google one day to delete banned content or face punitive measures. In a clampdown on tech giants, Moscow has said it wants to beef up its so-called internet sovereignty.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Thursday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Thursday.

France's competition watchdog fined the American tech giant €220 miillion ($267 million). The regulator said Google had given its own advertising products preferential treatment.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has resumed the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise. The exercise, which was last conducted before the 2019 General Elections, was slated to resume in the first quarter of 2020 but was abruptly halted due to the outbreak of COVID-19. GuardianTV takes a look at the process and here are things to know.

Google has launched a new website and feature to help those facing food poverty find free food in their local community.

The Department of Defense is canceling a controversial $10 billion cloud computing contract that had been awarded to Microsoft (MSFT) over Amazon (AMZN) under the Trump administration. The department announced Tuesday that it is canceling the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract that was previously awarded to Microsoft. It will instead seek new solicitations for an updated Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract from Amazon and Microsoft.

The former president claims the companies have unfairly censored him and other conservatives. A tech industry trade group called the class action lawsuit "frivolous."

Dozens of states and the District of Columbia have begun legal action against Google in the United States over what they allege is monopolistic behaviour in its Google Play app download store. The case argues that the tech giant blocks competition through technical and other barriers, but the company has described the case as "strange" and "meritless". Also, we look at a positive signal for the French tourism sector: hotel bookings have increased at the start of the summer season.

The French Competition Authority imposed a fine of 500 million euros on Google on Tuesday for not having negotiated in good faith compensation for the media for the use of its news content, something a national law requires.

Commercial flights to the Canary Island have been called off due to an "accumulation of ash" in the air. A recent volcanic eruption on the island has forced the evacuation of thousands of residents.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announces that the tech giant will invest $1 billion over the next five years to allow for faster and more affordable internet access and support entrepreneurship in Africa. Internet reliability is a problem in Africa where less than a third of the continent's 1.3 billion people are connected to broadband, according to the World Bank. But the continent, where nearly half the population is under 18, is a promising market.

A large cloud of ash spews from the main cone of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canaries, in images captured by researchers from the Spanish Geological and Mining Institute (IGME).