New York Times:
Ripple Labs investor and exec Chris Larsen plans to spend $3.5M to help Alex Bores, a NY congressional candidate at the center of a proxy war over AI regulation  —  Chris Larsen, who hails from California, plans to spend $3.5 million to help Alex Bores, a New York congressional candidate …

Lauren Thomas / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: GameStop is preparing to make an offer for eBay after quietly building a stake; GameStop had a market cap of ~$11B as of May 1, while eBay had ~$45B  —  Retailer's CEO Ryan Cohen has been eyeing a major deal, in part to clinch a huge payday  —  GameStop is preparing to make an offer for eBay …

Allie Garfinkle / Fortune:
Avoca, whose AI agents let physical services businesses handle inbound calls and dispatch, raised $125M+ across seed, Series A, and Series B at a $1B valuation  —  Tyson Chen and Apurva Shrivastava were chasing restaurants when they found an HVAC company.  —  The two engineers had first met …

Sam Tobin / Reuters:
A UK court orders Samsung to pay ZTE $392M for patents needed to enable phone network access; Samsung faces similar suits from ZTE in China, Germany, and Brazil  —  Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) must pay a $392 million lump sum for a licence to use ZTE's (000063.SZ) patents for mobile phones …

Aarian Marshall / Wired:
Waymo says it is continuing to “refine” its system preventing kids under 18 from riding alone, after adult riders reported new age-verification checks  —  As adult riders report new age-verification checks, the self-driving car company says it's continuing to “refine” …