Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-Trump Prepares to Surrender as New York Braces for Protests. Former President Trump is likely to answer charges before a judge on Tuesday, with the Secret Service in tow. His lawyer said he would not take a plea deal.The case, which could drag on for months and whose outcome is far from clear, is likely to test the country’s institutions and the rule of law.
-Biden’s Response to Trump’s Indictment? 4 Ways to Say No Comment. President Biden believes that presidents should not comment on pending legal matters. He also does not want to be baited into a reaction.
-Trump is likely to be arraigned on Tuesday. The charges against Donald J. Trump will be formally unsealed when he is arraigned. He is the first former U.S. president to be a criminal defendant, and his indictment puts the legal and political systems in uncharted territory.
-How did Alvin Bragg resurrect the case against Donald Trump? A year ago, the investigation into the former president appeared from the outside to be over. But a series of crucial turning points led to this week’s indictment.
-Storms kill at Least four people as tornadoes tear through Midwest and South. Tornadoes in Arkansas injured at least 30 people. A person was killed and at least 28 others hospitalized after a roof collapsed at a theater in Illinois.
President Biden surveyed the damage from a tornado that killed 26 in a small town in Mississippi last week.
-How a Trump-era rollback mattered for Silicon Valley Bank’s Demise.
An under-the-radar change to the way regional banks are supervised may have helped the bank’s rapidly growing risks to go unresolved.
-Why did Schwab, a Financial Giant, suffer in the regional banks panic? Like Silicon Valley Bank, the company holds billions in bonds that have declined in value. But it has access to billions in cash, if needed, analysts say, and is much more diversified.
-Fox news suffers major setback in defamation case. A judge said the suit would go to trial, for a jury to weigh whether the network knowingly spread false claims about Dominion Voting Systems, and to determine any damages.
-Bracing for Fights Ahead, Russia and Ukraine step up recruitment. After a winter of intense battles and heavy losses in Ukraine’s east, both Russia and Ukraine are taking steps to replenish their depleted forces.
-Analysis: espionage charge complicates effort to free detained reporter. The Biden administration recently secured the release of two Americans convicted in Russia, but even fabricated charges of spying can raise the stakes. Because of a bad facial recognition match, Randal Reid spent nearly a week in jail, falsely accused of stealing purses in a state he had never even visited.
-A Judge has temporarily blocked a Tennessee Law That Restricts Drag Performances
A federal judge held the law hours before it was to take effect, saying there were legitimate questions about whether it violated the First Amendment.
-An Israeli police officer has fatally shot and Arab outside Holy Site in Jerusalem. Officers killed the man early Saturday outside the Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and risking tensions during Ramadan.
-Man Guilty in Hate-Crime Killing of Asian Immigrant Sentenced to 22 Years. Jarrod Powell pleaded guilty to attacking Yao Pan Ma on an East Harlem street because the victim was of Asian descent.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Minutes after Donald Trump released a statement on Thursday night calling a Manhattan grand jury’s vote to indict him on criminal charges “political persecution” and a “witch-hunt”, Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis leapt to the former president’s defense.
-Two years on from the January 6 Capitol riots, and following a familiar call to arms from former president Donald Trump, it was widely feared that crowds of his supporters might swarm the streets of New York to protest his indictment by the Manhattan district attorney.
But by Friday afternoon, the anticipated hordes were conspicuously absent.
-Fox will have to go to trial to defend its coverage of the 2020 US presidential election, a judge ruled on Friday, denying the cable network’s attempt to prevent a $1.6B defamation case brought by voting machine maker Dominion from being decided by a jury.
-This week, just as China’s entrepreneurs were beginning to look like an endangered species, one of the most powerful regulators abruptly changed its tune. From now on, decreed the Cyberspace Administration of China, the “legitimate rights” of the corporate class would be respected. No one would be allowed to bad mouth the country’s bosses anymore.
-The rapid increase in interest rates exposed cracks in how some banks have managed their balance sheets. Three lenders have collapsed, a fourth is still on the ropes. Billions have been wiped off the market valuation of banking stocks. The crisis has big implications for US regional banks and their investors. Perceptions of risk have shifted sharply. Tougher regulation and lower profitability seem inevitable. Beyond this, US interest rate policy may now follow a gentler, slower trajectory.
-German industrial group ThyssenKrupp has revived plans to sell its submarine and maritime systems unit, a move likely to face scrutiny from politicians and government officials as Berlin seeks to boost its defense manufacturing. The decision was announced by employee representatives on Friday in an email to workers seen by the Financial Times. Employee representatives make up half of Thyssenkrupp’s supervisory board.
-Worried about a sharp deceleration of growth caused by tight Covid restrictions last year, President Xi Jinping has launched a charm offensive to convince domestic and foreign capital that the world’s second-largest economy is reopening for business.
-Sanna Marin has deftly handled the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Finland’s bid to join NATO. Despite those achievements, the prime minister is struggling to shake off her two rightwing rivals in parliamentary elections on Sunday. “Sanna Marin has two different images, said Hanna Wass, vice-dean of the University of Helsinki. “Internationally, she’s a superstar. In Finland, she’s more of a polarizing figure.”
-Italy’s privacy watchdog has temporarily banned the popular artificial intelligence service ChatGPT made by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, as policymakers across the world seek to respond to the rise of AI products.
The nation’s data protection authority on Friday said it would block access to the chatbot in Italy, while it examines the US company’s collection of personal information during a recent cyber security breach among other issues.
-On Friday evening, Virgin Orbit appeared to be teetering on the brink. Its shares had crashed after an emotional Hart told staff on Thursday evening that the company had “ceased operations for the foreseeable future”.
Last-ditch talks were still under way with potential investors, said several people with knowledge of the situation, but even they were increasingly gloomy. If the discussions fail, Virgin Orbit could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early next week, they said.
-A decade and a half later and Kelleher is once again centre stage in a banking crisis — this time as chair of UBS, the Swiss lender that agreed to rescue its fierce rival Credit Suisse two weeks ago. The 65-year-old, who prefers to operate in the shadows, has been thrust into the spotlight after orchestrating the first ever union of two global systemically important financial institutions. UBS’s $3.25B rescue of Credit Suisse will create the world’s fourth-largest bank — with 120,000 staff and $5tn of assets under management — and by far the most important financial institution in Switzerland.
-The chair of UniCredit applauded the Italian bank’s shareholders for cutting “through the noise” and backing a remuneration package that could push chief executive Andrea Orcel’s pay to €9.75M. UniCredit’s remuneration policy won the backing of 70% of the investors who attended the bank’s virtual annual meeting on Friday, ending months of controversy over the proposed pay deal.
NY POST
-Former President Donald Trump is facing at least one felony charge of falsifying business records in the indictment handed down by a Manhattan grand jury over an alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, sources told The Post on Friday. The charge of falsifying business records in the first degree is a class E felony, the lowest level felony, and it is the top charge in the indictment secured by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. f convicted on the felony count, Trump, 76, faces up to four years in jail. He could also receive probation and no jail time.
-Google parent Alphabet is slashing more of its lavish employee perks as the tech giant scrambles to cut costs and keep pace in the ongoing race to develop advanced artificial intelligence. The company will close some of its “micro-kitchens” that were stocked with free drinks and snacks and shutter cafeterias with lower foot traffic as part of the efficiency drive, according to a memo signed by Google CFO Ruth Porat and other top executives. Google will also trim its spending on company-provided equipment such as personal laptops, with top brass making “changes to what’s available and how often it’s replaced,” according to the memo.