Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-After weeks of Russian troops’ encircling and shelling the strategic coastal city of Mariupol, tank battles raged on its city streets on Saturday. In eastern and southern Ukraine, millions have fled or are cut off from humanitarian aid.
-Navigating between aiding Ukraine and avoiding an escalation with Moscow has led to a tangle of decisions and sometimes tortured distinctions over weapons and other elements of policy.
-President Biden’s call with Xi Jinping was the culmination of an effort to cut off Russian appeals to China for help.
Some fleeing Ukrainians are finding refuge in the U.S. with the help of private sponsors.
-Georgia was invaded by Russia in 2008. But its government is wary of condemning the war in Ukraine.
-An aircraft crash during a NATO training exercise in Norway killed four U.S. Marines, the police said.
-Ukraine is wrecking Russian tanks with missiles that weigh half as much as a Javelin — each one a gift from Britain.
-Another Covid surge may be coming. Are we ready for it? “We’ve been wearing rose-colored glasses instead of correcting our vision,” one scientist said.
-Moratoriums have expired on turning off utilities for customers who have failed to pay their bills, prompting fears that thousands could be left in the dark.
-The Turkish background of Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon running for the Senate, has emerged as a focus of attacks in Pennsylvania’s G.O.P. primary.
-A New York City clean-air program lets citizens report idling commercial vehicles in exchange for a cut of the fines. Some drivers have responded with fists.
-As President Emmanuel Macron addresses his country’s colonial history, the past is pervading the messaging of right-wing candidates ahead of April’s election.
-As suicide rates have increased, the military has struggled to meet the mental health needs of troops, lawmakers and service members say.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-As suicide rates have increased, the military has struggled to meet the mental health needs of troops, lawmakers and service members say.
-This was supposed to be the year the world economy recovered from the shock of Covid-19. By the end of 2022, official forecasters expected the US, European and Chinese economies almost to have returned to the paths they were cruising along before the pandemic. Other emerging economies were lagging behind, but they also expected to be growing at rapid rates and slowly getting back to normal.
-This was supposed to be the year the world economy recovered from the shock of Covid-19. By the end of 2022, official forecasters expected the US, European and Chinese economies almost to have returned to the paths they were cruising along before the pandemic. Other emerging economies were lagging behind, but they also expected to be growing at rapid rates and slowly getting back to normal.
-Renewed anxieties about global supply shortages are pushing oil prices higher again, the latest sharp moves in three weeks of extraordinary market volatility since Vladimir Putin ordered Russian tanks into Ukraine.
-It was a plan hatched in haste on the second day of the invasion. Ukraine’s digital transformation minister Mykhailo Fedorov turned to his deputy, instructing him to set up official government wallets that could accept payments in cryptocurrency.
-Bill Gross, the influential investor, has warned that even though the Federal Reserve started raising rates this week the US central bank will be unable to push through a planned series of further increases because doing so would “crack the economy”.
-They landed with a boom, scooping up trophy properties in some of Manhattan’s priciest locations. Now the Russians appear to be leaving with a whisper. Several have inquired with brokers in recent days about selling multimillion-dollar Manhattan properties as they try to liquidate assets before they are caught in a web of US sanctions. Most are doing so through discreet “whisper” listings with trusted brokers, as opposed to public sales, in order to minimize publicity.
-The British Virgin Islands have weathered some devastating storms. When Hurricane Irma lashed the territory with 220mph winds in 2017, five people were killed and more than 80 per cent of the buildings damaged.
THE NEW YORK POST
Lieutenant-General Andrey Mordvichev, commander of the 8th army of the southern military district, was killed when armed forces destroyed a command post at an airfield in Kherson, a port city in southern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.
-Russia unleashed nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles for the first time ever in combat, obliterating an ammunition depot in western Ukraine, its defense ministry said Saturday, as embattled President Volodymyr Zelensky made an urgent plea for “meaningful and fair” peace talks as the strategic port city of Mariupol was on the precipice of falling to the invaders.
-The US Commerce Department on Friday will move to effectively ground 100 airplanes that have recently flown to Russia and are believed to violate US export controls, including a plane used by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, officials told Reuters.
-We’re currently the world’s top producer of crude oil, gasoline’s raw ingredient, and generate more crude than we consume. We also sell more of it overseas than we buy from foreign companies. Yet we still rely heavily on imported oil.
That’s because our wells are located far from the Northeast and West Coast, where most of our gasoline is consumed, and we don’t have the pipelines to transport it.