Chile bid to boost state control over lithium spooks investors

By Alexander Villegas and Ernest Scheyder SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chile has moved to boost state control over its lithium industry as it seeks to diversify from mining into batteries and other areas, spooking investors in the country’s dominant miners of the white metal, SQM and Albemarle Corp. Chile’s progressive President Gabriel Boric late on Thursday announced…

Read More

Canada, Volkswagen to invest more than C$20 billion in EV battery gigafactory

By Steve Scherer and Victoria Waldersee OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada and Volkswagen on Friday together committed more than C$20 billion ($14.8 billion) for a battery gigafactory in St. Thomas, Ontario, the biggest single investment ever in the country’s electric-vehicle supply chain. Europe’s largest carmaker is investing up to C$7 billion to build the plant, Volkswagen said…

Read More

U.S. military prepares options for possible Sudan evacuation

By Daphne Psaledakis and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military is preparing options to evacuate the U.S. Embassy in Sudan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Friday as the Biden administration weighed whether to pull personnel out of the country’s increasingly unstable capital. “We’ve deployed some forces into theater to ensure that we…

Read More

Wall St posts slim gain ahead of big earnings week

By Lewis Krauskopf, Sruthi Shankar and Ankika Biswas (Reuters) – Major U.S. stock indexes ended with fractional gains on Friday following mixed earnings results as investors assessed how conflicting economic data might influence interest rates and looked ahead to a massive week of corporate reports. A survey showed U.S. business activity accelerated to an 11-month…

Read More

As DeSantis stumbles, anti-Trump Republicans fear a rerun in 2024 campaign

By Tim Reid, Alexandra Ulmer and Nathan Layne (Reuters) -Current and former Republican Party operatives who have spent years trying to banish Donald Trump from American political life say the former president’s 2024 campaign has begun to gain so much steam that they fear he is by far the favorite to become the party’s presidential…

Read More

SVB CEO, CFO resign, co appoints turnaround expert as interim finance head

(Reuters) -SVB Financial Group’s CEO and chief financial officer resigned this week while the collapsed lender’s restructuring committee appointed a turnaround expert as interim CFO, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. CEO Gregory Becker resigned on April 19, while finance chief Daniel Beck left the company on April 18, SVB said. The two top…

Read More

Biden signs executive order on ‘environmental justice’

By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order directing every single federal agency to work toward “environmental justice for all” and improve the lives of communities hit hardest by toxic pollution and climate change. The order will establish a new Office of Environmental Justice within the White House…

Read More

U.S. food banks warn of strain as Republicans seek food aid cuts

By Leah Douglas (Reuters) – Food banks across the United States are straining to meet spiking demand as high food costs and shrinking federal benefits drive scores of Americans to depend on free groceries, just as Republicans seek to narrow access to food assistance. President Joe Biden, who this week criticized Republicans’ proposals to further…

Read More

U.S. financial regulators to tighten rules on non-banks, systemic risks

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top U.S. regulators on Friday proposed new rules to speed the assessment of financial stability risks and make it easier to designate non-bank institutions as systemically important, subjecting them to Federal Reserve supervision. The multi-regulator Financial Stability Oversight Council released the proposals for public comment just over a month after…

Read More