NEED TO KNOW
IR Deal still out of reach: As Iran and the US continue negotiations on a framework to formally end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, reporting by the NYT indicated yesterday that President Trump amended elements of the draft agreement and sent it back to Tehran for consideration. On Monday, he also said any agreement with Iran should be part of a broader regional diplomatic realignment centered on expanding the Abraham Accords. He “mandatorily requested” countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Pakistan to join the accords and recognize Israel. Pakistan quickly rejected the proposal and a positive response from any of the other countries was largely seen as extremely unlikely.
LEB Israel expands ground offensive in Lebanon: Israel significantly escalated its military campaign against Hezbollah this week by advancing beyond the Litani River in southern Lebanon and capturing the strategically important Beaufort Castle ridge. The operation marks Israel’s deepest incursion into Lebanon since its withdrawal in 2000 and comes despite a ceasefire that was supposed to end cross-border fighting, though both sides have continued strikes. The escalation has raised concerns about a wider regional conflict, prompted international diplomatic pressure, and led to calls for emergency discussions at the United Nations.
CU Nearly 3 million people facing water shortages: Severe energy shortages have disrupted water pumping, affecting water supply for nearly 3 million Cubans (out of ~11 million total population). Though residents report that water access problems have persisted since 2021, the situation is now worsening, particularly following the US capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro. The US has since cut Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and President Trump has also threatened tariffs on other suppliers.
CA Canada enters technical recession: Canada's economy contracted by 0.1% on an annualized basis in Q1 2026, following a revised 1.0% decline in Q4 2025, meeting the common definition of a technical recession (i.e. two consecutive quarters of negative annualized growth). This surprised economists who had expected growth around 1.4%. Weak business investment (down 0.7%, its fifth straight quarterly decline), government spending, and US tariff uncertainty were key factors.
SP Police raid HQ of governing Socialist Party: Spanish police searched the headquarters of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s ruling Socialist Party (PSOE) this week as part of a widening corruption investigation involving senior party figures and alleged interference in judicial proceedings. Investigators were seeking documents and electronic records connected to former PSOE organization secretary Santos Cerdán and other individuals under scrutiny for suspected bribery, influence peddling, false testimony, and possible criminal organization activity. Sánchez himself has not been charged, but the investigation adds to mounting political pressure from separate corruption probes involving close allies, his wife, and other prominent Socialist figures.
AI SoftBank pledges €75 billion to build Europe's largest AI hub in France: Japan’s SoftBank announced plans to invest €45 billion over the next five years to build major AI data center infrastructure in France, with total planned investment reaching €75 billion. The project will create up to 5 gigawatts of computing capacity across multiple sites in northern France, making it one of the largest AI infrastructure investments ever made in Europe. SoftBank says France’s strong energy production, especially its nuclear power capacity, was a key reason for choosing the country. State-owned nuclear energy giant EDF is part of the deal, as it will be handing one of its former power plants over to SoftBank to transform the site into a data center.
US Investigation casts doubts on Tesla safety claims: A major Reuters investigation revealed that former Tesla "data labelers" tasked with training the company's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system routinely saw the software fail at basic tasks, including speeding, ignoring construction zones, stopping for school buses loading or unloading students and even nearly striking pedestrians or children. Seven out of nine former labelers interviewed by Reuters stated they would not trust the system to drive them, directly contradicting CEO Elon Musk's assertions that the technology is ready for unsupervised autonomy. Furthermore, traffic safety researchers reviewed Tesla's methodology and concluded its publicized claims that FSD is "10 times safer" than human drivers are highly misleading. The investigation found that Tesla inflated its safety metrics by comparing severe airbag-deployment crashes in its own vehicles against a federal crash rate for all vehicles that includes far less severe accidents and by comparing its cars to the average US vehicle, which is significantly older than the average Tesla.
US Blue Origin rocket explodes: A Blue Origin “New Glenn” rocket exploded during a static "hotfire" engine test at Cape Canaveral, creating a massive fireball that destroyed the launchpad. No one was injured in the incident, which Blue Origin described as an "anomaly." The explosion poses a significant setback for NASA's Artemis program, as the New Glenn is intended to launch lunar landers for moon base construction and future crewed missions. The Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, establish a sustainable lunar presence (including a $20 billion moon base), and lay the groundwork for future Mars missions.
GOOD TO KNOW
The unprecedented IPO: SpaceX breaks valuation records and rewrites the rules
The upcoming SpaceX IPO, targeted for as early as June 12, has triggered unprecedented structural shifts among major index providers. To facilitate rapid benchmark inclusion, Nasdaq and FTSE Russell have dramatically reduced their "seasoning" windows, traditionally a period of several months used for price discovery, to just 15 days and 5 days, respectively. Seasoning rules were established to protect passive investors from the acute volatility and speculative hype that typically characterize the immediate aftermath of an IPO. Historical data shows that the majority of IPOs experience severe drawdowns (often near 50%) within their first year of trading as early enthusiasm cools.
While the IPO is bolstered by a massive $4.16 billion US Space Force contract that was announced this week, the company’s governance structure has also drawn sharp criticism from major institutional investors. SpaceX’s adopted extremely unusual corporate governance policies, including a rare mandate that shareholders waive their rights to jury trials and class-action lawsuits, opting instead for mandatory arbitration. Furthermore, Elon Musk will maintain approximately 85% of the voting power, derived from majority ownership of a type of stock known as class B, which gives holders 10 votes per share.
These rule changes, the governance policies, as well as the company’s fundamentals, have drawn widespread criticism and led some major entities, like AkademikerPension, a Danish $25 billion pension fund, to officially announce that it will not participate in the IPO, buy shares in the secondary market and also avoid indexed products that include SpaceX. Chief Investment Officer Anders Schelde stated the company is “grossly overvalued”, calculating its actual worth at under $1 trillion (much lower than the $1.75 trillion the company is aiming for), while condemning its "catastrophic governance structure" that leaves public investors with virtually zero control.
NICE TO KNOW
IT Ferrari unveils first full EV, shares fall: The Italian carmaker unveiled the Luce, its hotly anticipated fully electric vehicle, starting at $640,000, with a range of 530km and four motors that can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds. Luce’s minimalist design, however, created by the former Apple design chief Jony Ive, sparked intense controversy. Former Ferrari boss Luca Cordero di Montezemolo criticized the new look, arguing that Ferrari's badge, the famous Prancing Horse, should be removed from this model and saying "We risk destroying a legend… At least, this is definitely a car the Chinese won't imitate”. Shares dropped sharply following the unveiling, by over 8% on the Milan stock market and by over 5% in New York.
AI CNN sues Perplexity: CNN filed a federal copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit against Perplexity AI, alleging that the platform systematically scraped more than 17,000 of its articles, videos, and images without authorization. The network contends that Perplexity uses this stolen data to generate competing summaries that are "identical or substantially similar" to the original reporting while diverting traffic and revenue away from the news organization. Perplexity dismissed the legal claims, stating that "you can't copyright facts”. Over the last two years, News Corp, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and Encyclopedia Britannica have also taken legal action against Perplexity, while TIME, Le Monde and Der Spiegel have chosen a different approach, and announced deals with the company instead.
US Google engineer rigs Polymarket trades: The US Department of Justice has charged Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo with insider trading on the prediction market Polymarket. He allegedly used confidential Google data about its "most-searched" lists to place highly profitable bets, earning around $1.2 million. Notable examples include betting on niche figures like musician D4vd and rapper Kendrick Lamar topping the lists when internal data showed they were likely to do so, despite very low market odds. The case highlights growing regulatory concerns over insider trading in the booming prediction markets industry.
AUS Australia sues 3M for forever chemicals contamination: On May 28, the Australian federal government launched its largest-ever legal claim, suing US manufacturing giant 3M and its local subsidiary for more than A$2 billion ($1.43 billion) over PFAS, or "forever chemical”, contamination. The lawsuit alleges that 3M withheld and misrepresented critical information regarding the environmental and health risks of its firefighting foams, which were heavily utilized across 28 domestic military bases. According to government officials, the toxic pollution has already cost Australian taxpayers over $1 billion to investigate and mitigate, including the removal and treatment of more than 200,000 tonnes of contaminated soil.
###