THE SPEED READ
Deals
23andMe, the consumer DNA testing company, will go public by merging with a SPAC backed by Richard Branson and his Virgin Group at a $3.5 billion valuation. (23andMe)
Retail traders’ latest obsession may be a blank-check fund run by the veteran banker Michael Klein that’s in talks to merge with the electric car company Lucid — the SPAC’s shares have more than tripled in the past month. (WSJ)
British and E.U. antitrust regulators reportedly plan expansive investigations into Nvidia’s $40 billion deal to buy Arm, reflecting deep skepticism about the transaction. (FT)
Politics and policy
Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, accepted a mandate to form Italy’s next government as prime minister. (NYT)
The Justice Department dropped a lawsuit accusing Yale of discriminating against white and Asian applicants, a legal fight started by the Trump administration. (NYT)
Tech
The C.E.O. of the conservative social network Parler said he was fired after a dispute with is financial backer, Rebekah Mercer, over limits on user postings. (NYT)
Canadian authorities declared the facial recognition app Clearview AI illegal, though their demand of scrubbing Canadian faces from its database may be hard to enforce. (NYT)
Myanmar’s military has blocked Facebook, a primary source of news for its citizens, after seizing power in a coup. (FT)
Best of the rest
How the billionaire financier Robert Smith avoided a criminal indictment in a tax case. (Bloomberg)
Former President Donald Trump’s top banker at Deutsche Bank, Rosemary Vrablic, was pushed out after failing to disclose a side transaction with a client. (NYT)
Buyers paid millions for apartments in the supertall 432 Park tower in Manhattan’s “Billionaire’s Row” — and ended up with costly leaks, creaky walls and huge hikes in common charges. (NYT)
The New York Times
