Tell me about a recent news affecting the investment banking business

(Almost) any answer can be good as long as you're articulate in presenting it and can back it up properly. I'd agree though that some topics are better than others (i.e. the more directly relevant, the better - but, and to the first point, a directly relevant topic which you don't justify or have a surface-level knowledge of will be a bad answer).

So, some topics that come to mind are:

1) US election - this one is obvious. Trump ran on a more deregulatory mandate, so this might encourage more dealmaking than under a democratic administration which might be more opposed to such deals on, for example, anti-trust issues. You could quote the recent deal in the luxury space as an example (among my other poor attributes as a person, forgive me for being European, so I'm less informed on this than Americans, but that's my transatlantic read).

2) Lower interest rates. This is really obvious though not exactly "new news". But articulate it well and this'll be fine (i.e. cheaper access to cash for PEs, more appetite to do deals, etc.)

3) Strengthening USD. This is somehow related to the other topics but, say, against JPY (you could quote EUR or other countries but JPY has been nuts over the past year or so, as someone increasingly eyeing up Niseko for skiing). This effectively puts more buying power in the hands of US corporates which may make some deals economically viable where they weren't 2 years ago

Top advice here is to be prepared to answer follow-ups (e.g. wasn't JD Vance more sympathetic to anti-trust concerns? why are interest rates falling? why has the JPY been more impacts than the EUR?)