Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-The foreign ministers of Finland and Sweden are set to join a meeting with their NATO counterparts on Saturday, another sign that Western allies are uniting against Russia.
-The US defense secretary spoke with his Russian counterpart for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine.
-India said it would ban wheat exports as global prices rise.
-The US Treasury has warned foreign banks against helping Russia evade sanctions.
-America’s network of Black colleges was founded to provide opportunity. For many, it has come to offer something else: a link to a treasured legacy.
-Tattoo artists are considered criminals in South Korea, but they’re thriving underground.
-The stock market has long been producing double-digit returns for investors. But the party has ended and it may be a while before it begins again.
-Elon Musk’s tweets about pausing his Twitter takeover spurred new questions, but his contract with Twitter would make a breakup costly and complicated.
-A judge halted part of a law that prevents doctors from prescribing hormone therapies to transgender youth, but upheld a ban on sex-altering operations.
-Critics of the proposal say the rules are restrictive and would stymie the growth of charter schools, whose 3.6 million students are largely Black and Hispanic.
-The subpoenas for five GOP members of Congress sent a shock wave through a divided Capitol and left lawmakers wondering what’s next.
-A Trump-backed candidate appears to be struggling in the GOP Senate primary, a sign that voters seem less swayed by former President Trump’s guidance.
-Former employees described an NFL franchise bedeviled by executive departures, poor financial management and a raft of firings, payouts and NDAs.
-At a conference, Justice Clarence Thomas also denounced the recent protests at justices’ homes and said conservatives would not adopt such tactics.
-As hundreds gathered at the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American broadcaster, riot police assaulted the people carrying her coffin.
-The confirmation of a third Democrat creates an opportunity for the Federal Trade Commission’s chair to advance efforts to rein in corporate power.
-Protests triggered by rising food prices have been spreading in Iran
“They have no hope, they have no trust in the government and they can’t tolerate the status quo anymore,” one Iran expert said of the protesters in at least six provinces.
-Biden calls on states to devote stimulus funds to police.
Ahead of the midterm elections, President Biden is making a forceful push to show he is a defender of law enforcement.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-The FTSE All-World index is on its longest weekly losing streak since the middle of 2008, equaling in duration the decline before the subprime mortgage crisis led to the catastrophic collapse of Lehman Brothers. A late bounce on Friday was insufficient to offset a brutal sell-off earlier in the week.
-Tech companies have been among the biggest losers in the markets. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta have collectively seen $2.1T wiped off their market capitalizations. Carvana has been one of the worst hit, but it is by no means alone. DoorDash, the US market leader for restaurant food delivery, is down 49% year to date. Affirm, one of the biggest in the previously highly-fancied buy-now-pay-later sector, has crashed 75%. Shopify, the ecommerce operator regularly billed as the most serious threat to Amazon’s ecommerce dominance, is down 67%.
-Soaring inflation and supply chain bottlenecks have begun to crack the $1.5T US junk bond market, as the lowest-quality borrowers show signs of stress.
-In a move that could undermine Turkey’s efforts to strengthen ties with the US and Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Erdogan — whose country has been a NATO member since 1952 — on Friday said he could not take a “positive view” of the two nations’ potential bids for membership.
-US defense secretary Lloyd Austin called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Ukraine during his first phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu since the war began almost three months ago, as western allies ramped up direct talks with Moscow.
-Elon Musk on Friday tweeted that he was pausing his bid as he awaited further information to confirm whether the social media company’s quarterly estimates of its fake accounts were accurate, sending Twitter shares falling and raising questions about what, exactly, Musk meant.
-Richard Broughton, director of research at Ampere, said that although there was an increase in churn rates at the start of the year, “there is no strong evidence to suggest that customers are being pulled away due to interest in other [streaming video] services”. The data suggest that a combination of higher inflation and a weakening stock market prompted consumers to tighten their budgets.
-The world’s largest carmakers have warned supply chain disruptions and higher raw material prices threaten the rollout of electric vehicles, even as demand for battery-powered models vastly exceeds manufacturers’ current production capacities.
-Apple supplier Foxconn reported its highest first-quarter net income in eight years as the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer is gaining market share from rivals hit hard by China’s brutal pandemic lockdowns.
-Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ president and ruler of oil-rich Abu Dhabi since 2004, has died aged 73, with his powerful brother set to become the Gulf state’s next leader.
-Australia’s defence minister Peter Dutton has accused China of committing an “act of aggression” after a People’s Liberation Army naval vessel came within 50 nautical miles of a naval communications center.
-Grain traders, food companies and governments have been keeping a close eye on supplies since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted farming in the country, one of the top five wheat exporters. The USDA predicted on Thursday that Ukraine’s wheat production would fall by a larger than expected 35% per cent from the year before, to 21.5M tons.
-UK fish and chip shops are branching out into lesser-known species, such as hake or sea trout, and offering smaller portions, as the rising price of often Russian-caught fish pushes makers of the classic British meal to the point of closure.
THE NEW YORK POST
-Three people were shot, including a 16-year-old girl, outside of the Bucks game in Milwaukee on Friday — sending panicked crowds on the street sprinting for their lives.
-President Biden is calling for an investigation of baton-wielding Israeli police who charged into the funeral procession for American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh — after departing White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the incident “deeply disturbing.” Israeli authorities said they rushed into the Jerusalem crowd — nearly causing Abu Akleh’s coffin to fall to the ground — after Palestinians threw rocks. The incident occurred just before a closed-door meeting at the White House between Biden and Jordanian King Abdullah II.
-“A Twitter short seller gloated on Friday after Elon Musk pumped the brakes on his $44B bid to buy out the social media site with a bizarre tweet that claimed negotiations were ‘on hold.’” Short-seller Hindenburg Research had written Monday that Musk “holds all the cards” in the deal and could threaten to walk away in order make the company’s board agree to a lower purchase price.