(US) Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday
• Employers added hundreds of thousands of jobs last month as vaccinations spread and businesses reopened, but the labor market’s recovery from the pandemic is choppy, and hopes for a surge in hiring have turned out to be optimistic.
• + FB: The social site, which has banned Donald Trump until at least January 2023, when he will be eligible for reinstatement, will look to experts to decide “whether the risk to public safety has receded” before it allows him back on the platform.
• In the last weeks of the Trump administration and continuing under President Biden, the Justice Department fought a secret legal battle to obtain the email logs of four New York Times reporters in a hunt for their sources.
• The US is grappling with a rapidly evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Iraq after militia forces specialized in operating more sophisticated weaponry, including armed drones, have hit some of the most sensitive American targets.
• Authoritarian governments, from large ones such as China to small ones such as Belarus, are increasingly reaching beyond their borders to intimidate, kidnap, and kill troublesome émigrés and other dissidents who speak out.
• Very few adolescents have become ill enough with Covid-19 to be hospitalized, but of those who did, about one-third were admitted to intensive care units, and five percent required ventilators, according to CDC data.
• With fresh data showing employers added jobs at a decent pace in May, Biden said his administration would not try to extend enhanced unemployment benefits that Republicans have criticized as a key factor in fueling a labor shortage.
• The Biden administration is sounding increasingly urgent alarms about high-profile ransomware attacks against US companies and infrastructure, prompting FBI director Christopher Wray to compare the problem to global terrorism.
Sunday
• The relationship between American businesses and their employees is changing as workers gain more leverage for the first time in a generation, and the trend, which began before the pandemic, could persist for years.
• In Donald Trump’s final weeks in office, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, according to uncovered emails provided to Congress.
• President Biden is doubling down on an Obama-era strategy of committing hundreds of millions of dollars to Central America to make the region more tolerable for the poor and discourage them from seeking to come to the US.
• + BIIB: If the FDA on Monday approves aducanumab, which aims to slow the progression of memory and thinking problems in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, analysts predict it would be come a blockbuster and bring a huge windfall to Biogen.
• Cases involving 48 people from the Canadian province of New Brunswick who have been struck with a mix of symptoms including insomnia, impaired motor function, and hallucinations have baffled medical experts around the world.
• G7 officials reached a breakthrough on Saturday in their yearslong efforts to overhaul international tax laws, backing a new global minimum tax rate of at least 15 percent regardless of where companies locate their headquarters.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
• Across the US, more than 800 utility-scale solar projects are under contract to generate nearly 70,000 megawatts of new capacity, but they face opposition for a range of reasons, including keeping land unspoiled and for their effect on endangered species.
• “Friday’s jobs report keeps the Federal Reserve on track to begin informal internal discussions about reducing the pace of its large bond-buying programs, though a concrete plan for winding down the purchases isn’t imminent.”
• Record-high prices have many owners of starter homes reluctant to trade up to a bigger and/or better home because they can’t afford to upgrade, creating a shortage of homes for sale at lower prices.
• Senate Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who is leading efforts to reach a compromise on infrastructure legislation, proposed a $50B spending increase from the latest GOP offer, a step Biden said still fell short of he wants to reach an agreement.
• + C, JPM: The banks said they will resume campaign donations from their political-action committee, but split on the question about whether they would donate money to Republican lawmakers who voted to challenge the results of the 2020 election.
• The Biden administration is moving to restore protections for endangered animals and plants that were loosened under Donald Trump, a move that had triggered lawsuits from environmental groups.
• Thousands of people in Hong Kong defied a huge police presence and threats of jail to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, maintaining an annual vigil that has become a symbol of opposition to China’s crackdown on freedoms.
• Hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman’s deal for Universal Music through PSTH involves the use of a novel vehicle called a special-purpose acquisition rights company, which gives shareholders the right to buy into a deal when one is presented.
• Experts aren’t sure when, if ever, we’ll have truly autonomous vehicles that can drive anywhere without help, says columnist Christopher Mims, and they could be at least decades away despite investments that already surpass $80B in various startups.
• Entrepreneurs who create Bitcoin have long flourished in China despite problems with the government, but a recent warning of a crackdown could threaten their future and send some crypto miners to the West.
• H.O.T.S: Robinhood and SoFi are the latest startups to try to get small investors into IPOs, but sharing the benefits of early access widely isn’t always easy; Many more babies in China is a long shot, but healthcare demand isn’t going anywhere but up; Jobs are hard to fill and wages are rising, but other factors will persuade the Fed to hold off on raising interest rates for now.
FINANCIAL TIMES
Weekend
• In the push by large global economies to tax multinational profits, one issue that remains to be settled is whether a minimum tax would be exactly 15 percent, as the US proposes, or at least 15 percent, as other countries want.
• Large Japanese sponsors of the Tokyo Olympics are calling for it to be postponed so that more spectators can attend as vaccination rates around the world increase, with some companies worried about the value of their marketing spends on the event.
• US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci is calling on China to release the medical records of nine people whose illnesses might provide vital clues into whether Covid-19 first emerged as the result of a laboratory leak.
• Brussels is calling for a rapid increase in global coronavirus vaccine production, saying it’s a better way to fight the pandemic than by relaxing patent access, as the US is calling for.
• Big Read piece says “The online attack on JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, was the latest example of the relentless rise of ransomware, but it remains nuclear whether the US will put pressure on Russia to hold the hackers involved to account.
• Lex Column: Olympic sponsors must hope that their lossmaking investment in the Japanese games will not also have a negative impact on their brands; The abundance of cheap debt, a booming stock market, and a glut of SPACs have made it hard to find big targets—but Bill Ackman’s PSTH has found a way around that; Venture capitalists cannot seem to get enough of grocery apps.
NEW YORK POST
Saturday
• + SQ: As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies gain popularity, many companies have emerged to serve a growing need to protect these assets from online theft, prompting Square’s announcement it might create a non-custodial hardware wallet for the digital currency.
Sunday
• Columnist Charles Gasparino says there are plenty of investors who aren’t convinced that green investing is anything more than a politically induced fad that will never make money, and wouldn’t get financing were it not for government grants.