Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-Ukraine’s Advances near Bakhmut Expose Rifts in Russian Forces
-Russia’s pro-war bloggers were quick to claim that Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive had begun, but Ukrainian officials downplayed the moves.
-Ukraine’s offensive could set stage for diplomacy with Russia, US Officials Say.
-Aides of President Biden have been exploring potential endgames to identify an outcome that could be acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow if real peace talks started.
-Pandemic-era restrictions were lifted without a fresh spike in border crossings. Thousands of asylum seekers now find themselves in a holding pattern.
-Despite the relative calm, the Biden administration faces court challenges that they say may undermine efforts to deal with record levels of crossings.
-Daniel Penny arraigned on manslaughter charge in Jordan Neely’s killing. The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Mr. Penny with second-degree manslaughter for choking Mr. Neely to death on the subway.
-Turkey’s President Amassed Power. He Could Still Lose This Election. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tilted the political playing field in his favor over the past two decades, but he faces a stiff challenge in Sunday’s election.
-Striking writers’ union denies waiver, imperiling Tony Awards. The Writers Guild of America indicated it would not grant a waiver to allow a live telecast of the Tonys on June 11.
-Lin-Manuel Miranda joined members of Actors’ Equity at a rally in support of the Writers Guild of America. Jay-Rey Rivera
-The FDA has approved a new drug to treat hot flashes in menopausal women. It’s the first nonhormonal treatment for the symptoms of overheating of the upper body and sweating that can be disruptive to daily life for years.
-As Mayor Eric Adams began speaking at the CUNY commencement, many of the graduates, in their caps and gowns, turned away from him in a show of protest.
-Elon Musk appoints Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s new chief executive. Musk said Ms. Yaccarino, who had been NBCUniversal’s advertising chief, would focus on business operations and that he would work on product design.
--Behind New Indictments of El Chapo’s Sons, rivalry seethed between agencies. When charges against the Chapitos were announced last month, the Justice Department presented a unified front. It was another story behind the scenes.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Russia’s defense ministry claimed a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive had begun, pointing to intensifying attacks in eastern Ukraine over the past 48 hours. The ministry on Friday said Ukraine had launched 26 assaults along a 60-mile stretch of the frontline near Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, involving more than a thousand troops and up to 40 tanks. It conceded that Russian troops had redeployed to “more advantageous” positions in some locations but said it had stopped Ukrainian forces from making any breakthroughs.
-While former Pakistani prim e minister Imran Khan was in confinement, some of his supporters had clashed with the police and burnt their vehicles, leaving at least five dead across Pakistan. There had even been attacks on army buildings — unprecedented in a nation where the generals sit above politics, but run the show behind the scenes.
-Elon Musk has appointed Linda
Yaccarino, as CEO of Twitter. Yaccarino is a towering figure in advertising and has deep relationships with marketers and advertising agencies, as well as ties to the traditional fixtures of global business such as the World Economic Forum, where she is an executive chair.
-The Congressional Budget Office has warned there is a “significant risk” that the US government will be unable to “pay all of its obligations” in the first two weeks of June if the debt ceiling is not raised. The intervention by the government spending watchdog reinforces US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen’s warning that the federal government could be heading towards an unprecedented default as soon as June 1.
-Clean energy analysts have warned new US rules designed to speed up a reshoring of clean energy supply chains will do little in the short term to break their dependence on imports from China. The Treasury department on Friday issued new guidance that would only allow US-based solar developers to secure tax credits offered in the Inflation Reduction Act if they made their cells domestically.
-Lawyers for the Mirror newspaper group accused Prince Harry and three other claimants of engaging in a “highly publicized smearing” of its former board at the High Court in London on Friday. The court is hearing a high-profile lawsuit brought by the prince and three others alleging that Mirror Group Newspapers unlawfully gathered information at its three titles for almost 20 years — between 1991 and 2011 — including through phone hacking and use of private investigators.
-Turkey’s big political parties are gearing up for an election mission like no other this weekend: helping a million people who fled after February’s devastating earthquake return to their ravaged hometowns, find their local school buildings, and vote. Polls suggest this number of voters could be a significant force in Turkey’s most tightly contested — and consequential — electoral race in a generation, pitting Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s leader for two decades, against Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, who is representing an opposition alliance. The earthquake covers 11 provinces which produced sharply varying results in the previous presidential election.
-President Joe Biden on Friday officially nominated Philip Jefferson to serve as the next vice-chair of the Federal Reserve in his latest step to reshape the top ranks of the US central bank. The US president also tapped Adriana Kugler, an economist who represents the US on the board of the World Bank, to become a Fed governor. If confirmed, she would be the first Latina to become a top policymaker at the Fed.
NY POST
-Nearly two dozen struggling homeless veterans have been booted from upstate hotels to make room for migrants, says a nonprofit group that works with the vets. The ex-military — including a 24-year-old man in desperate need of help after serving in Afghanistan — were told by the hotels at the beginning of the week that their temporary housing was getting pulled out from under them at the establishments and that they’d have to move on to another spot, according to the group.
-CNN CEO Chris Licht encouraged former President Donald Trump to “have fun” in a backstage exchange moments before the start of the town hall. Before taking the stage at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, Trump reportedly crowed to the cable news boss that he was about to boost CNN’s ratings. Licht nodded in response, then told Trump to “have a good conversation and have fun,” two people familiar with the interaction told the Guardian. The contentious town hall with the Republican front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination turned out to be a ratings bonanza for struggling CNN. The broadcast raked in 3.3 million viewers, the cable network’s highest total in two years.