Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-As the Russian military appears increasingly in turmoil, President Vladimir Putin is taking on a deeper role in war planning, U.S. officials said.
Mr. Putin has rejected requests to retreat from a vital city and told commanders that strategic decisions in the field are his to make, creating tensions.
-Putin’s Draft Draws Resistance in Russia’s Far-Flung Regions
Villagers, activists and some officials have asked why President Vladimir Putin’s draft seems to be hitting poor, rural areas harder than big cities.
-Global markets tumble as recession fears return. The S&P 500 fell 1.7%, just above its lowest point for the year in June. It’s on course for its third straight quarter of losses.
-Former President Trump’s legal team pushes to limit aides’ testimony in the January 6 inquiry. Trump’s lawyers are seeking to invoke attorney-client and executive privilege over grand jury testimony after witnesses received subpoenas.
-The New York attorney general’s lawsuit against the Trump family hinges on a law used to take on corporate giants.
-Amid GOP Cash Crunch, Former President Trump, sitting on a huge campaign war chest, is eyeing a raft of television ads to help Republican candidates in the midterm elections, people familiar with the talks say.
-Lorne Michaels discusses the ‘year of reinvention’ coming to ‘Saturday Night Live.’ The SNL creator explains how the show is handling one of its biggest cast turnovers in decades and why he has no plans to retire.
-Ahead of the midterms, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, presented neutral-sounding ideas that he said would guide a Republican majority.
-Tropical Storm Ian is forming and Florida prepares for its effects. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Friday declared a state of emergency for 24 counties ahead of the storm, which could develop into a major hurricane by next week.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-The FTSE All-World index of global stocks fell 2.1 per cent on Friday, bringing its loss over the week to 5 per cent, the worst since June. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 stock index finished the week down 4.6%, while the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite shed 4.16%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 registered a daily loss of 2.3% on Friday to officially enter “bear market” territory — typically defined as having declined 20 per cent or more from a recent peak. The moves came at the end of a tumultuous week dominated by hawkish central bank updates as policymakers try to stamp out soaring inflation.
-Voting began on Friday in four provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine in hastily convened referendums on whether to join Russia, to the delight of pro-Moscow officials and the disgust of those residents whose allegiance still lies with Ukraine.
-The La Niña weather phenomenon is under way for the third year running, the first time in more than 20 years that a “triple dip” has occurred, putting countries already affected by floods and drought on alert.
The moves came at the end of a tumultuous week dominated by hawkish central bank updates as policymakers try to stamp out soaring inflation.
-Citi’s existing book totals roughly $65B and the bank is preparing to slash that to about $20B in the coming months, one of the people said. There is high demand for the lending from buyout groups in particular, which use money pledged by fund investors as collateral for the short-term bank loans to close deals in advance of receiving cash from their backers.
-Demand for the new iPhone 14 unveiled earlier this month is already robust enough to project that the global “average selling price” — or ASP — will rise to a record $892 in the September quarter and $944 in the December quarter, according to Counterpoint Research, a data provider, which bases its projections on consumer demand, market intelligence, and talks with suppliers.
-In recent decades, policymakers and business leaders who attended gatherings at Davos and had the ears of western leaders were inclined to think otherwise. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a near-consensus prevailed among them that peace was the natural condition of the developed world and that globalization was immune from geopolitical risk.
-Hong Kong will ditch its stringent hotel quarantine for incoming travelers that has eroded the city’s status as a financial hub, hammered its economy and sparked an exodus of residents. The policy, which at one point required visitors and residents to quarantine in a hotel for as long as three weeks, had been in place for two and a half years, effectively cutting the city off from the rest of the world as well as from mainland China.
NY POST
-Two US veterans who were released by Russian separatists as part of a prisoner exchange are finally back on American soil after landing in New York City on Friday. Alex Drueke and Andy Huynh both disappeared three months ago in the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine while fighting alongside Ukrainian soldiers against invading Russian forces. The pair were released to the US embassy in Saudi Arabia before finally touching down at JFK International Airport around noon.
-Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly grew agitated during a “heated” all-hands meeting in which an employee asked why the search engine was “nickel-and-diming” workers by taking away perks and benefits. Pichai, who has ratcheted up the pressure on Googlers to boost productivity in the midst of a sharp economic downturn, held court at a meeting in New York this week during which he was grilled by his employees over cuts to travel and entertainment budgets. One worker summoned the nerve to ask Pichai why Google was “nickel-and-diming employees” when the company reported “record profits and huge cash reserves.”