Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday
• Israel may quickly rebound from the recent fighting with Hamas, but the scale of the destruction in Gaza will not allow a return to normality for some time, with many parts of Gaza City now a dystopian sea of rubble.
• Republicans have this year introduced 144 bills to restrict the ballot initiative processes in 32 states, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, of which 19 have been signed into law by nine Republican governors.
• In nonbinding elections, five counties in eastern Oregon, a conservative region that has long felt alienated from the liberal politics of Portland and other population centers, voted to secede and become part of Idaho.
• Billions of dollars in Covid aid helped some of the nation’s largest hospital chains survive the pandemic, but the cash infusion also provided resources to expand by scooping up weakened competitors and doctors’ practices.
• Scientists discovered a new canine coronavirus in a child hospitalized with pneumonia in Malaysia in 2018, which if confirmed to be a human pathogen would be the eighth coronavirus and the first canine coronavirus known to cause disease in humans.
• DealBook: Almost half the restaurants that sell food on e-commerce platform Goldbelly have joined since the start of the pandemic, quadrupling its sales over the past 12 months, but as at-home dining abates the surge in business may not last.
Sunday
• Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else, such that the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time later this century.
• As the economy rebounds, Republicans believe inflation and worker shortages need to be addressed, but the Biden administration believes the trends are temporary, and is moving ahead with its infrastructure and jobs proposal.
• A $4B federal fund meant to confront how racial injustice has shaped American farming has angered white farmers who say they are being unfairly excluded as the Biden administration seeks to confront how racial injustice has shaped farming.
• The Navajo Nation, which has its own police academy, universities, bar association, court system, and a new Washington office, has gained an important distinction: it is the most populous tribal nation in the US.
• John Coates, acting director of the SEC’s division of corporate finance under chairman Gary Gensler, hopes to change the rules under which index fund executives, not the millions of people who invest in them, have the sole power to cast proxy votes.
• Some experts estimate that the market for legalized marijuana in New York and New Jersey could surpass $6B within five years, but as production ramps up, the industry faces a shortage of the dried cannabis flower needed to grow plants.
• As Arctic sea ice melts, Russia is deploying soldiers and equipment to the Far North, becoming essentially the first military to act on the strategic implications of climate change for the region in what some have called the beginnings of a Very Cold War.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Weekend
• Bitcoin miners are reopening old fossil-fuel power plants as the high prices of cryptocurrencies prompts investors to spend on the electricity generation needed to mine them, a trend that faces a backlash because of the environmental ramifications.
• +/- AAPL: During four hours of testimony in a California court, chief Tim Cook faced tough questions from a federal judge who will decide whether the tech giant operates an improper monopoly with its App Store payment system.
• America’s home-buying boom is easing after heating up last year, as limited inventory and record high prices are excluding potential buyers—existing-home sales fell 2.7 percent in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.85M.
• US services businesses in early May saw their sharpest increase in activity in more than a decade, according to purchasing manager surveys, which also indicate a stronger-than-expected rebound in Europe and a contraction in Japan.
• A pared down White House proposal for a bipartisan infrastructure plan fell flat with Senate Republicans, leaving questions no closer to resolution days before a Memorial Day target for progress in the talks to spend on highways and broadband.
• Germany and France welcomed the Biden administration’s new acceptance of a minimum corporate tax rate as low as 15 percent, possibly smoothing the way to a global agreement as soon as July that could transform how international businesses are taxed.
• Federal agencies are scrambling to address a surge in the use of consumer drones that are crowding the airspace above critical sites, including airports, posing a threat to public safety and national security.
• China is tightening its grip on the global supply of processed manganese, rattling a range of companies world-wide that depend on the versatile metal—including the planet’s biggest electric-vehicle makers.
• Americans are getting more signals that it is safe to visit bars and restaurants again, which will test whether tips that grew larger during the pandemic will remain at those levels down the line.
• H.O.T.S.: If China hopes to curb steel demand—and emissions—it has to find a better way to shift the economy away from housing; VF Corp. “has many ways to grow its brands even as Vans sales slow.”
FINANCIAL TIMES
Weekend
• Front page story reports AZN chief Pascal Soriot insists the company’s Covid-19 vaccine has a future and criticized the “armchair generals” who were attacking the company because of a the rare instances of side effects.
• Poor nations are losing out after the WHO’s Covax program, which depended on getting shots from the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, said it will not be able to provide any more doses until the end of the year.
• The world could end the pandemic by the middle of 2022 by vaccinating 60 percent of the population and working to end the inequality undermining the global response, at a cost of $50B, according to a recent proposal released by the IMF.
• ECB president Christine Lagarde dismissed concerns about inflation being driven by rebounding economic activity and supply constraints, saying that these pricing pressures were “of a temporary nature.”
• Beijing rebuffed the Pentagon’s requests for talks between China’s top officer and the new US defense secretary, complicating bilateral relations at a time of heightened tensions between the countries and their militaries.
• Big Read piece says “A fortnight of violence has exposed Benjamin Netanyahu’s illusion that Israel can be at peace without a resolution of the Palestinian conflict. It has also demonstrated the pent-up anger at decades of occupation.”
• Lex Column: Any currency capable of evading Beijing’s controls is anathema to the People’s Bank of China, which prefers currency it can track and trace; A broader improvement in Richemont is not yet priced into shares; Bold assumptions about internal valuations have helped Electra’s shares double since the start of the year.
• Comment: Cryptocurrency holders are taking on central banks at their own peril, says Katie Martin—“If and when central banks and regulators do assume control, it will probably bite a chunk out of the value of cryptocurrencies and leave some holders with substantial losses.”
NEW YORK POST
Saturday
• Referring to an affair former MSFT chief Bill Gates had with an employee, current chief Satya Nadella said the company is very different than it was 20 years ago, and that it will investigate any and all issues raised by employees.
• As the pandemic wanes, US retailers are frantically trying to get rid of an excess inventory in hand sanitizer, a product that was a must-have only months ago but which now is cluttering up shelves.
Sunday
• Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to President Biden on the coronavirus pandemic, said he’s “not convinced” the deadly virus developed naturally and has called for further investigations into where it emerged.
• The CDC says it is investigating a small number of reports of adolescent and young adult Covid-19 vaccine recipients experiencing “mild” heart inflammation, a condition that can be caused by a number of viruses and often bring no complications.