Weekend Papers SummaryNEW YORK TIMES-The Kyle Rittenhouse case has served to highlight the United States’ divisions over guns. As groups debate the effect of Kyle Rittenhouse’s not-guilty verdict, the legislative stalemate over gun control shows no signs of changing. The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse points to the wide berth given to defendants who say they acted out of fear.-Gun purchases in the US are at record levels, and a spike in the firearm-related homicide rate during the pandemic has overwhelmed local police departments.-Mark Richards, Kyle Rittenhouse’s lead attorney, left, and Ben Antaramian, a Kenosha Police Department detective, examine the weapon that Kyle Rittenhouse used on the night of Aug. 25, 2020.-A power struggle over cobalt: The quest for Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt, which is vital for electric vehicles, is stuck in a cycle of greed and gamesmanship between the US and China.-Hunter Biden’s investment firm helped secure one of the world’s richest cobalt deposits in the DR Congo for a Chinese conglomerate.-Nancy Pelosi’s pivotal role in the social policy bill reached beyond the House and into the Senate, as she cajoled key holdouts, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.Former President Trump is tightening his grip on the Republican party as a haphazard kingmaker, threatening Republican incumbents while endorsing questionable candidates.-The White House, F.D.A. and C.D.C. made announcements this week that signaled an expansive effort to control the pandemic.-While a rise in fentanyl overdose deaths shows the devastating consequences of the opioid’s spread, less is understood about how the drug has proliferated.-An Indiana city has the most roundabouts in the country. They’ve saved lives and reduced injuries from crashes — and lowered carbon emissions.-Generations have dreamed of removing the Claiborne Expressway. President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill could eventually make that possible.-India’s farmers have received foreign and domestic financial support, kept their camps organized and looked for ways to be seen while trying to avoid violence.Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin faced tough questions about how countries were supposed to deal with a U.S. national security policy that constantly upends itself.FINANCIAL TIMES-Joe Biden’s battle to pass a $1.75tn package to enhance the social safety net and combat climate change moves to the thorny terrain of the US Senate, after clearing the House of Representatives.-With inflation at multi-decade highs in the US, Germany and other advanced economies, the subject has shot to the top of the economic agenda so rapidly that what was a niche concern at the start of 2021 is now at the heart of politics. “For the first time in 30 years,” says Randy Kroszner, deputy dean of the Chicago Booth School of Business and a former Federal Reserve governor, “inflation has become the salient political issue.”-Morgan Stanley veteran Colm Kelleher will replace Axel Weber and will work alongside CEO Ralph Hamers, who has pledged to speed up digitization.-Visa hits back at Amazon over claims its fees are too high. The online retailer says it will stop accepting UK-issued Visa credit cards from next year.-The European Commission presses Poland and Hungary on rule of lawLetters to Warsaw and Budapest are informal step towards a decision on whether to hold back EU funds.-European cities protest against fresh restrictions to stem the coronavirus pandemic. Dutch officials defend police opening fire against demonstrators in Rotterdam while tens of thousands gather in Vienna.-The big question for the future of AstraZeneca’s vaccine is: who will be buying it? The US has not yet approved it and the EU has a huge order with Pfizer stretching into 2023. Even its home country, the UK, has turned away from the AstraZeneca shot: while it has administered about 50m in total, safety reporting data estimates that in the three months to early November a maximum of 400,000 AstraZeneca shots were given.-MiamiCoin: There is a long history of city-states producing their own money. But in the past that production came with monetary sovereignty — the ability to control quality and volume. Miami is launching a novel experiment: it is lending its name to a money it doesn’t control. Miami is looking into allowing city employees to take their salaries in bitcoin and Suarez has said he would like it to be able to collect taxes in bitcoin as well. This is all still an economic development plan — trying to encourage the use of crypto.-Carmakers are both struggling to match Tesla on electric vehicle technology and production. For years it had been assumed that the main carmakers that build millions of combustion engine cars a year could rapidly scale up their EV production — as soon as they nailed battery technology and enough consumers showed an interest. But forecasts for six big car groups out to 2024 indicate that Volkswagen is the only legacy carmaker on track to overtake Tesla for EV production. -Carlos Torres Vila, the head of Spanish bank BBVA, explains why his company has made a bet in Turkey agreeing to take full ownership of Turkish bank Garanti.-Big polluting nations have cast doubt on whether they would upgrade their emissions targets next year, after agreeing at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to “revisit and strengthen” them in line with the Paris accord.NEW YORK POST-Two lawyers who briefly worked on Rittenhouse’s case — and helped raise $2 million to help get him released from jail as he awaited criminal charges — want their cash back, but the now acquitted teen’s family is fighting the move.- US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed Saturday to both block Iran from securing nuclear weapons and counter its “dangerous use” of suicide drones throughout the Mideast.“The United States remains committed to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, and we remain committed to a diplomatic outcome of the nuclear issue,” said Austin during the annual Manama Dialogue in Bahrain.-In a court case now unfolding in West Palm Beach, Fla., Ira Kleiman, the brother of the late computer-security specialist David Kleiman, maintains that his brother and computer scientist Craig Wright developed the original digital currency, bitcoin, credited to the Nakamoto pseudonym.