Global News

[ad_1] Changpeng Zhao had long cultivated the image of the rugged pugilist of the cryptocurrencies world. When his rival Sam Bankman-Fried ’s crypto empire collapsed a year ago, Zhao, or “CZ” as his fans call him, was in the middle of it all, yanking his money in a very public way and helping trigger the ultimately fatal run on the firms. Years earlier he claimed the company’s headquarters was wherever he happened to be, a thinly veiled salvo against regulators trying to nail down jurisdiction.And this March, when US regulators charged Zhao and his firm, Binance Holdings, with violating US securities laws, his on-line response was “4,” which is Zhao code for dismissing something as unworthy of his attention. On Tuesday, though, Zhao cut a very different image in a Seattle courtroom. Dressed in dark suit and pale blue tie before a federal judge, he pleaded guilty to criminal charges for anti-money laundering and US sanctions violations, including allowing transactions with Hamas

[ad_1] U.S. shares struck new highs for the year on Friday, setting world stocks up for gains for the week, as rising bets that the Federal Reserve will skip a rate hike next week overshadowed worries about U.S. markets being drained of cash. Helped by a surge in Tesla Inc, which jumped as much as 5.7%, the S&P 500 rose to levels last seen in August before receding by mid-day to be little changed. The Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also pared earlier gains to stand flat. Over in Europe, the STOXX 600 index lost 0.13%, but MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 0.74% overnight. Combined with gains on Wall Street, the MSCI’s broadest index of world stocks added 0.14% to hover under a 13-month high. For the week, the index for world stocks might notch a 0.4% rise. “As of today, the S&P 500 is back in a bull market," said Arthur Hogan, chief market strategist at Briley Wealth, noting that the index finished Thursday with a