Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-As the year closed out, Omicron drove coronavirus cases to record highs, upended air travel and left staffing holes at hospitals. Uncertainty looms as the variant continues to spread, and as people return to workplaces and schools that vow to remain open.
-Airlines canceled more than 2,400 flights across the United States by midday Saturday, by far the worst day in the industry’s week-long struggle with bad weather and crew shortages.
-In an almost empty cathedral, with an unvarnished, rope-handled coffin placed before the altar, South Africa said farewell on Saturday to Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu with the simplicity that he had planned.
-Eric Adams has taken office as New York City’s 110th mayor at a perilous moment. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, faces difficult decisions over how to lead through the next wave of the pandemic. Nevertheless, some prominent Democrats think their party’s nominee for mayor of New York offers a template for how to address issues of public safety.
-Record-setting fires in Colorado have destroyed more than 500 homes.
Unlike fires in mountain wilderness, which often burn over the course of weeks, the destruction on Thursday played out in minutes and hours.
-After slow gains in women’s rights, South Korea is facing a type of political correctness enforced by young men angry at feminists.
-The Islamic State identified the suicide bomber who attacked Kabul airport four months ago (killing over 200 people, including 13 US soldiers) as Abdul Rahman Al-Logari. American officials say he was a former engineering student who was one of several thousand militants freed from at least two high-security prisons after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on Aug. 15.
-A Vatican library is shortening the distance between its works and its scholars. Rare books are going online thanks to a German copier, a Long Island scanning firm and a New York software company.
-Jelena McWilliams, whom former President Trump appointed as the chairwoman of the F.D.I.C., said that she would step down effective Feb. 4. Democrats on the board contended she was stonewalling their attempts to review policy.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Forecasting 2022 geopolitics: The world on the brink of 2022 seems an especially unpredictable, and unsettling, place. For the first time, two FT forecasts this year ask if Russia and China will invade neighbors (they say no). Less optimistically, our forecasters warn a more infectious coronavirus variant than Omicron could yet emerge, inflation will not return to US targets, tighter monetary policy will hit equities, and the next global climate conference will still not achieve enough in limiting warming. A bit playfully, perhaps, John Thornhill forecasts shares of Elon Musk’s Tesla will buck the trend and rise nonetheless.
-A rising tide of hot equity markets lifted almost all listed asset managers in 2021 but the dispersion between winners and losers is expected to increase next year as investors favor groups exposed to fast-growing areas such as private assets, according to analysts.
-The world economy rebounded from the historic recession caused by the Covid-19 crisis better than many economists expected in 2021 but faces a harder path ahead in the coming year, forecasters have warned.
-The rush of volunteers comes as tensions escalate amid reports that Russia has amassed 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine, sparking fears that Moscow is preparing to invade. As part of intense diplomatic efforts to ease the crisis, US president Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, spoke by phone on Thursday, ahead of further negotiations in January between Washington, Moscow and NATO powers.
-More than 2M people in the UK were infected with coronavirus last week, according to the latest official figures, causing a jump in staff absences in the health service and fast-rising admissions to hospitals.
-The EU wants to recognize nuclear power and forms of natural gas as “green” activity as part of a landmark classification scheme to help financial markets decide what counts as sustainable investment.
-Certares Management and Knighthead Capital Management are sitting on paper gains of almost $3bn after an audacious $2bn bet in May on Hertz, part of the century-old car hire pioneer’s exit from pandemic-induced bankruptcy.
-Chinese tech group Tencent has taken a stake in Monzo, the latest international investor to join a funding round that values the UK digital bank at $4.5B. The move, revealed on Friday, underlines a rapid recovery in Monzo’s fortunes after a tough start to the pandemic that had crushed its valuation and even prompted outside warnings that it could struggle to stay afloat.
-This may be the year Boris Johnson’s luck runs out. Unfortunately for the UK prime minister, 2022 is set to be dominated by circumstances out of his control.
-The US government significantly underestimated the number of jobs created this year as it struggled to analyze data distorted by the effects of the pandemic, creating fresh challenges for policymakers navigating a highly volatile economic environment.
-Oil and gas shares — knocked early in the pandemic and increasingly shunned by eco-conscious investors — have this year eclipsed the stock markets’ in-vogue environmental, social and governance-focused companies.
THE NEW YORK POST
-New York City health officials have been using race to help decide how to allocate precious coronavirus testing resources, leaked emails from the agency show. In a conversation with reps for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, City Councilman Joe Borelli’s office said constituents on Staten Island’s South Shore were having trouble getting tested at city facilities.
-Outgoing Disney executive chairman Bob Iger penned a farewell post on social media Friday as he formally exits the company that he helped to build into a global entertainment powerhouse. Iger, 70, is set to retire when his contract expires at the end of the year after a lengthy run as Disney’s top executive. He has served as Disney’s executive chairman since stepping down as CEO in early 2020.
-A group of Republican-led states slammed Nasdaq’s implementation of a diversity disclosure rule for corporate boards this week, arguing in a court filing that the requirement is illegal and unconstitutional.