Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-US shoots down high-altitude object over Alaska. The incident comes less than a week after a US fighter jet brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic during a diplomatic crisis.
-China, still trying to play down balloon, finds it’s getting harder to do. Beijing has accused the United States of waging “information and public opinion warfare.” But analysts say a lack of credible messaging from China is not helping.
-US blacklists 6 Chinese entities involved in spy balloon programs. The action to cut off five Chinese companies and a research institute from American parts and technologies is part of the Biden administration’s response to the balloon it shot down last week.
-Russia fires major missile barrage at Ukraine as combat intensifies. The first major aerial bombardment in weeks targeted cities across Ukraine, as President Volodymyr Zelensky returned home from a trip across Europe to press for more arms.
-Both Ukraine and Russia are preparing to attack after months of static fighting, with Russia moving first. Here’s what each side wants to achieve.
-Gov. DeSantis declares victory as Disney is stripped of some 56-year-old perks. Florida passed a bill, supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis, that restricts Disney’s autonomy over a fight involving the teaching of gender.
-In place of damaged or destroyed hospitals, a series of field clinics have sprung up in Turkey, with doctors and nurses from around the world.
-As the death toll rises in the one of the deadliest quakes in decades, a global humanitarian aid effort faces deep challenges.
-The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria in early February killed tens of thousands of people, flattened city blocks and sent the region, already grappling with a refugee crisis and over a decade of war, into a monumental recovery effort.
As of Feb. 10, the death toll in Syria and Turkey combined had surpassed 22,000. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that over 19,000 people had died in his country; in Syria, the death toll neared 3,400, according to Syria’s Health Ministry.
-FBI found one classified document after searching Pence’s home. Aides to former Vice President Mike Pence agreed to the search after discussions with the Justice Department.
-Electric vehicles could match gasoline cars on price this year. Competition, government incentives and falling raw material prices are making battery-powered cars more affordable sooner than expected.
-Toronto mayor resigns after admitting to relationship with employee. The mayor, John Tory, who had led the city since 2014, apologized for what he called a serious error in judgment.
-Trump is willing to provide DNA in case filed by writer, his lawyer says.
Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll, who accuses the former president of raping her at a department store decades ago, say they have genetic evidence connected to the episode.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Ukraine has pleaded with its allies for ammunition and artillery “immediately”, warning it is running short of stocks to defend against a new Russian offensive that Kyiv fears is imminent. The demand, by Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna, came on a day when Moscow launched ballistic missiles against Ukraine’s infrastructure. It also followed a tour of western capitals by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that emphasized longer-term supplies of fighter jets and heavy weaponry.
-In 2022, the six largest western oil companies made more money than in any year in the history of the industry: over $200B, largely from pumping and selling the fossil fuels the world must replace to avert the climate crisis.
The windfalls that BP, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total revealed in their end-of-year results have sparked outrage and accusations of war profiteering. It has also cast doubt over the commitment of executives, politicians and investors to the Paris climate agreement to slow global warming by bringing down emissions.
-The US military shot down a “high-altitude object” off the coast of Alaska on Friday, White House spokesman John Kirby said, a week after it downed a Chinese spy balloon that was floating in American airspace.
The object, which Kirby said was the “roughly the size of a small car”, passed over land in Alaska before being shot down by a fighter jet on Friday morning local time, falling into frozen waters near the north-east border with Canada. “The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight,” Kirby said. “Out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Joe Biden ordered the military to down the object, and they did.”
-Moldova’s Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita has resigned citing a lack of support for her government as it struggles with the fallout from Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine, and efforts by Moscow to destabilize the country. President Maia Sandu announced later on Friday that her security adviser Dorin Recean would take over as prime minister.
-Activist investor ValueAct has purchased a stake in Spotify, with the head of the fund arguing that costs at the streaming music service had “exploded” as it built out its podcast business. Mason Morfit, head of the San Francisco-based investment firm, disclosed the position at a conference hosted by Columbia University on Friday. Morfit did not reveal the size of the stake but said it was ValueAct’s newest position.
-Last year, as Turkey marked the anniversary of an earthquake that ravaged parts of the country in 1999, Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed government “urban transformation projects” that would shield people from future catastrophes. “As humans, it is not in our hands to prevent disasters; yet, it is in our hands to take measures against their destructive impacts,” he said. Now, the Turkish president stands accused of failing to do just that — and faces the enormous challenge of a vast humanitarian crisis. The country’s worst natural disaster in almost a century has already claimed more than 19,000 lives on their side of the border with Syria.
-China has cut its participation in an internet cable project to link Asia with Europe, as tensions grow between Washington and Beijing over control of the physical infrastructure that transmits the world’s online traffic.
Two of China’s biggest telecoms groups, China Telecom and China Mobile, withdrew their combined investment of roughly 20 per cent from the subsea cable project last year after a US company was selected to build the line over Hengtong Marine, the country’s biggest provider in the sector, according to three people briefed on the decision.
-German house prices suffered their biggest six-month fall in more than 20 years in the second half of 2022, underlining how an unprecedented rise in interest rates has brought an abrupt end to the decade-long boom in Europe’s largest property market.
-Gautam Adani has hired one of Wall Street’s fiercest activism defense law firms to fight back against claims made by short seller Hindenburg Research, as the Indian billionaire battles to reassure investors about the financial health of his business empire. In recent days, the Adani Group has tapped senior lawyers at New York’s Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to advise it on how to stem the crisis facing the Indian conglomerate since Hindenburg accused it of accounting fraud and stock market manipulation in late January, four people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
NY POST
-Emails released Friday by the National Archives reveal references to President Biden’s lawyers handing over boxes of documents in Boston — confirming a little-known detail in the chronology of Biden’s classified documents scandal. “Please ensure that the boxes in your office in Boston remain secure in a locked space and are not accessed by anyone,” National Archives official Gary Stern wrote on Nov. 7 to Biden attorneys Patrick Moore and Bob Bauer.
-Former President Donald Trump’s legal team has given federal prosecutors more documents with classified markings and an aide’s laptop in recent months, according to a report. The handovers happened in December of last year and in January, according to CNN. Also turned over to investigators was an empty folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing,” the news outlet reported.
-Angry Google employees ridiculed CEO Sundar Pichai on internal message boards over the tech giant’s botched handling of a crucial rollout for its “Bard” AI chatbot this week. The much-hyped rival to the the popular Microsoft-backed ChatGPT chatbot, which is seen as a potential threat to Google’s search engine dominance, flubbed an answer during Monday’s presentation. In posts on Google’s internal forum “Memegen,” workers described the troubled launch as “rushed,” “botched” and “un-Googley,” according to CNBC.