SEC's SPAC scrutiny ensnares marquee deals

USA TODAY
Cicadas will soon become a massive, dead and stinky mess. There's a silver lining.
Cicadas aerate soil and will make great compost, after they die off later this year. Why experts say your garden will be fine.
Reuters
Two Britons to face trial next year accused of spying for China
Two Britons, including a former researcher for a prominent British lawmaker in the governing Conservative Party, were told on Friday they would go on trial next year accused of spying for China. The men, ex-researcher Christopher Cash, 29, and Christopher Berry, 32, were charged last month with providing prejudicial information to China in breach of the Official Secrets Act. Cash and Berry, who have not yet entered a plea, appeared for a brief hearing at London's Old Bailey Court on Friday where they spoke only to confirm their names and date of birth.
Reuters
Explainer-Catalonia's independence struggle – what now?
Spain's Catalonia region holds an election on Sunday with big implications for the Socialist-led national government and a pro-independence movement rumbling for a decade. WHEN DID THE INDEPENDENCE PUSH START? Support for independence was marginal in the wealthy northeastern region, which speaks its own Catalan language and borders France, until the 2012 eurozone financial crisis that led to widespread job losses.
Reuters
China's Zeekr set to debut on NYSE after upsized IPO
It would also be a barometer to gauge interest for EV makers, which have seen profits being eroded due to a fierce price war in China that has left automakers searching for opportunities outside their domestic markets. Rivian Automotive has lost 85% since its IPO in November 2021, while Lucid Group is left with a fourth of what it fetched when it signed a deal with a blank-check firm earlier that year. It sold 21 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at $21 each to raise $441 million.
Associated Press
Heavy fighting in Gaza's Rafah keeps aid crossings closed, sends 100,000 civilians fleeing
Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and caused over 100,000 people to flee north, a United Nations official said Friday. Israel's plans for a full-scale invasion of Rafah appear to be on hold for now, with the United States deeply opposed and stepping up pressure by threatening to withhold arms. Heavy fighting was also underway in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have once again regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punishing assaults.
Reuters
Russia advances in Ukraine's Kharkiv region in push to create buffer zone, Kyiv source says
KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces launched an armoured ground attack on Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region early on Friday, advancing one kilometer near the border town of Vovchansk in an effort to create a buffer zone, a senior military source said. Fighting in the border areas of the Kharkiv region continued and Kyiv has sent more forces to the area as reinforcements, the defence ministry said. A senior Ukrainian military source who declined to be named said that Russian forces were aiming to push the Ukrainian armed forces as far back as 10 kilometers from the Russian border and that Kyiv's forces were trying to hold them back.
AFP
French, US drug firms team up for Covid-flu shot
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi and struggling US rival Novavax announced Friday an alliance to sell a Covid vaccine and develop another that combines with a flu shot.The French group will be able to develop a combination flu-Covid vaccine using its own flu shots with the US company's Covid jab.
Reuters
Gaza aid could grind to a halt within days, UN agencies warn
Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close down and leading to more malnutrition, United Nations aid agencies warned on Friday. Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people as part of Israel's military operation in Rafah, where around 1 million uprooted people have been sheltering. The Israeli military said a limited operation in Rafah was meant to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which governs the besieged Palestinian territory.
AFP
UK's Labour vows to ditch government's Rwanda deportation plan
Britain's main opposition Labour party on Friday pledged to scrap the Conservative government's flagship Rwanda scheme if it comes to power, replacing it with a tougher more joined-up approach to tackling irregular migration."We will replace the Rwanda policy permanently," he said, promising a new approach to securing UK borders by tackling the issue "upstream" to smash the people-smuggling gangs behind the crossings.
CNN
Europe’s best long-distance hiking trails
From Sweden’s Hyssna Trail to Greece’s Vikos Gorge, these multi-day hiking trails offer an exhilarating and peaceful way of exploring Europe’s most beautiful places.
Reuters
Futures rise ahead of data, speeches from Fed officials
Wall Street indexes were back in sight of record highs following a selloff last month, as a slew of economic data pointed to cooling labor market momentum, raising expectations that the Fed will cut borrowing costs more than once this year. Expectations of U.S. monetary policy easing, along with a much better-than-expected earnings season put the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite on track for their third consecutive week of gains. While most Fed policymakers have reiterated that the next policy move will be a rate cut, doubt still remains about when the easing will begin.
Time
How to Stop Bird Flu from Becoming the Next Pandemic
The most important tool in our arsenal is widespread testing, write Janika Schmitt and Michael Mina. We're not doing enough of it.
AFP
Departing Georgia envoy to Francehits out at foreign influence bill
Georgia's ambassador to France, who has resigned over a bill criticised for mirroring repressive Russian legislation, called for the draft law to be dropped on Friday.Critics say the bill, a similar version of which was scrapped last year following protests, mimics repressive Russian legislation that the Kremlin uses to crack down on opponents and could block Georgia's path to joining the European Union.
AFP
European stock markets hit record highs on rate cut hopes
European stock markets climbed to fresh record highs Friday on growing hopes that central banks are close to cutting interest rates.The European Central Bank is expected to cut its rates in June.
Reuters
Crypto group with 440,000 members launches PAC to target House, Senate elections
A cryptocurrency nonprofit has launched a new political action committee (PAC) to raise money from its 440,000 members for crypto-friendly politicians, and is endorsing a bipartisan slate of candidates running in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Stand With Crypto's PAC joins a deep-pocketed effort from the cryptocurrency industry to put political candidates in office who are committed to supporting crypto and blockchain. Crypto super PACs Fairshake, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress have so far raised more than $110 million this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Reuters
Police were advised to avoid mass arrests; then came the US campus protests
In the three tumultuous weeks since protests broke out at U.S. universities, police have descended on dozens of campuses to sweep up students in mass arrests, adhering to an approach many criminologists have found to be outdated and counterproductive. New York police arrested nearly 300 people at Columbia University and City College of New York on April 30 during protests over the war in Gaza, setting off flash bangs to stun and disorient demonstrators. But an early examination of the approach to campus protests suggests police, in many cases, have yet to shed outdated ways of handling large demonstrations, they said.
Reuters
Fed's Bostic says economy likely slowing, though rate-cut timing uncertain
The U.S. central bank likely remains on track to cut interest rates this year even if the timing and extent of the policy easing is uncertain and further declines in inflation come only slowly, Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic said in an interview with Reuters. "I still have that belief" that interest rates can be lowered this year despite a first quarter in which the pace of price increases seemed to stall well above the Fed's 2% target, Bostic said in his first public comments since the central bank's policy meeting last week. Conversations with businesses in his U.S. Southeast Fed district indicate that wage and job growth will likely slow, Bostic said, and that most firms feel their pricing power is in decline after the fast price hikes that pushed inflation to 40-year highs in 2022.
Reuters
Trump prosecutors prepare to call final witnesses in hush money trial
Donald Trump is set to return to court Friday after porn star Stormy Daniels' lurid testimony about her alleged sexual encounter with him, as prosecutors prepare to call their final witnesses in the first-ever criminal trial of a sitting or former U.S. President. In seven hours of testimony this week over two days in New York state criminal court in Manhattan, Daniels spared few details. Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels, 45, for her silence ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election about the alleged encounter.
Associated Press
Police dismantle pro-Palestinian encampment at MIT, move to clear Philadelphia and Arizona protests
Police early Friday dismantled a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and moved to clear protesters from University of Pennsylvania’s campus in Philadelphia, just hours after police tear-gassed protesters and took down an encampment at the University of Arizona. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, video showed police roaming through the MIT encampment and organizers said about 10 students had been detained. A crowd outside the camp began gathering and chanting pro-Palestinian slogans but were dispersed by 6 a.m.
Reuters
Analysis-Tesla's EV charging team layoffs threaten to slow Biden's program to electrify highways
Elon Musk's decision to gut Tesla's electric-vehicle charging team is scrambling plans for rolling out new fast-charging stations and may delay President Joe Biden's efforts to electrify U.S. highways. Last year, the Biden administration announced rules for an ambitious plan to expand the country's charging infrastructure and jump-start EV adoption. Under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, the government is doling out $5 billion to states over five years to build 500,000 EV chargers.

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