NYT (Saturday): In the wake of his impeachment trial, Trump ordered Gordon Sondland recalled from his post as the ambassador to the European Union on the same day that lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran on the National Security Council staff, was marched out of the White House by security guards; In China, a deluge of mourning and anger at the death of doctor Li Wenliang—who first warned of the conoravirus and then died from it—has overwhelmed the country’s sophisticated censorship and propaganda systems and made Dr. Li a martyr and a hero; Karen Pierce, a senior career diplomat, will become Britain’s next ambassador to the US, inheriting the task of strengthening the country’s “special relationship” with the US at a time when London is at odds with Washington over several critical policies; For more than a month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization have been offering to send experts to China to observe the coronavirus outbreak and help if it can—but the offers have been refused, with no reasons given; With an intense flu season in full swing, hundreds of thousands of patients overwhelming emergency rooms in the US, and the hospitals are bracing for a spread of coronavirus that could bring another surge of patients; Security analysts are now scrutinizing a range of Chinese talent programs and the foreign scientists who have applied to them, based on concerns about the theft of US technology; New York state plans to sue the Trump administration over its decision to ban thousands of New Yorkers from enrolling in programs that allow travelers to circumvent long lines at airports and borders; Wages for black workers in the US are rising—a Times analysis of government data found that wage growth for black workers has accelerated recently after lagging for much of the decade-long economic expansion; (Sunday): Front page story reports “Buoyed by his impeachment acquittal and the muddled Democratic primary race, Donald Trump and his campaign are turning to address his re-election bid’s greatest weaknesses with an aggressive, well-funded but uncertain effort to win back suburban voters turned off by his policies and behavior”; A colossal hydroelectric dam being built on the Nile 2,000 miles upriver from Egypt, in the lowlands of Ethiopia, threatens to further constrict Egypt’s water supply, and construction, planned for this summer, has stoked concern about the fallout, including a potential war to stop the project ; Some Democrats warn that a week showing in New Hampshire could undermine presidential candidate Joe Biden’s electability argument and accelerate a flight of donors and voters to his rivals; After decades of dominating its oil industry, Venezuela is quietly surrendering control to foreign companies in a desperate bid to keep the economy afloat and help the socialist government of Nicolás Maduro retain power; Antarctica, the coldest, windiest, and driest continent on Earth, set a record high temperature on Thursday, underscoring the global warming trend; Sunday Business: Algorithms are increasingly being used in the criminal justice system: Local authorities around the world use “predictive” algorithms to set police patrols, prison sentences, and probation rules, as well as flag welfare fraud risks and rate which teenagers are most likely to become criminals.
WSJ: US hiring strengthened in January as more Americans hopped into the labor market, boosting the economy at the start of the year—employers added 225,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.6% from 3.5% in December, a sign more people are looking for work, according to the Labor Department; related story says “Nearly three of four Americans who were newly employed in recent months came from outside the labor force—meaning they weren’t actively looking for work prior to the month they accepted a job, the highest ratio in three decades of records”; The solid employment report should comfort Federal Reserve officials about the state of the US economy, though the recent threats to global growth from the outbreak of the coronavirus in China could change things; Faced with an outbreak that so far has killed 630 people and infected more than 31,000 world-wide, China’s President Xi Jinping has mobilized the vast state machinery to fight the coronavirus and battle the most intense public anger since he took power in 2012; + F, HMC, BMW, Volkswagen: The Justice Department closed its antitrust investigation of four auto makers that had reached a tailpipe-emissions deal last summer with the state of California, finding no evidence of collusion among the companies; Under pressure from the Trump administration, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador is taking on a new strategy to fight drug cartels, including bringing the marines, Mexico’s elite security force, back to the front lines of the drug war; For more than half a century, the Mormon Church quietly built one of the world’s largest investment funds—called Ensign Peak Advisors, it had stockpiled almost $100B—but almost no one outside the church knew about it; Chinese tourists are disappearing from major shopping capitals across the US and Europe because of the coronavirus, exposing how dependent high-end retailers in cities such as New York, Paris, and Milan have become on Chinese money; Investors are diving into the bond market like never before, says Intelligent Investor columnist Jason Zweig, but it’s a sign of prudence, not folly; A yearslong crackdown on cheating in futures markets is yielding new wins for the government, but several trials to come will show whether the Justice Department’s focus on a tactic known as “spoofing” is ultimately successful; H.O.T.S.: Some already struggling energy companies may not be able to weather the drop in oil and gas demand stemming from the coronavirus outbreak; Fundamental change at SoftBank is a long shot, but may not be necessary to give Elliott a return on its $2.5B stake in the conglomerate; The job engine looks unlikely to sputter for now, which should keep consumer spending going and push the economy along.
FT (Weekend): Front page story reports on CS chief Tidjane Thiam’s resignation, noting he was ousted despite a high-profile campaign to support him by the bank’s largest investor, Harris Associates; second piece says leaders in Finland and Sweden say a possible US plan to acquire NOK and ERIC to counter Huawei should be a wake-up call; David Lipton will step down as first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund at the end of the month, paving the way for the Trump administration to choose a successor for the second-most powerful position at the lender; The Antarctic Peninsula is heating up faster than the rest of the continent, exacerbating fears about the devastating effects on glaciers and ice caps; Big Read: “TSLA’s legions of supportive investors believe it will become the iPhone of the electric vehicle era, but as competition starts to intensify and rivals invest heavily, it could also end up as just another car company”; Lex Column: Former CS chief Tidjane Thiam’s leadership will be missed, but the bank suffered from reputational woes, and his departure should at the very least support the share price; TWTR could introduce stronger privacy measures by charging a subscription fee, but many casual users would leave; Comment: Tom Mitchells says the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, who first raised the alarm in China about the coronavirus, poses dangers for Beijing, which at this point may have to appropriate his heroism instead of condemning it.
NY POST (Saturday): AMZN chief Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, sold close to $5.3B in shares since January 31 to fund Blue Origin, his space flight company, which recently posted job listings for its lunar lander program; By selling almost all of his UBER shares three months ago, when they were down, founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick left $1.2B on the table, following a recent rise in the share price; (Sunday): The total, worldwide death toll from the coronavirus rose to 813 on Saturday, a number that now exceeds the number of people killed by SARS in 2002 and 2003, which claimed 774 lives worldwide.