Testifying in the biggest U.S. antitrust case in a quarter century, Google CEO Sundar Pichai defended his company’s practice of paying Apple and other tech companies to make Google the default search engine on their devices, saying the intent was to make the user experience “seamless and easy.”

The Department of Justice contends that Google — a company whose very name is synonymous with scouring the internet — pays off tech companies to lock out rival search engines to smother competition and innovation.

According to court documents the government entered into the record last week, the payments came to more than $26 billion in 2021, a year in which operating expenses for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, were nearly $68 billion.

Google contends that it dominates the market because its search engine is better than the competition’s. “We are working very, very hard for any given query we provide the best experience,” Pichai said. “That’s always been our true north.”

Pharmacists start sick-out

Drugstore workers around the country started calling in sick Monday to highlight a lack of support from their employers, protest organizers said.

The extent and impact of the demonstration, which is planned until Wednesday, were not clear as of Monday afternoon.

Pharmacists and technicians for dozens of drugstores had called in sick as of midday, said Lannie Duong, a pharmacist who is helping to organize the protest. She said organizers estimate that “at least hundreds” of pharmacists and technicians — mostly for Walgreens and other big retailers like CVS Health — were involved.

Pharmacists say they have been dealing with difficult working conditions for years. Those problems worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when stores saw waves of people seeking tests, vaccines and treatments.