NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday
• A white former Minneapolis police officer was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after a video of him kneeling for nearly nine minutes on the neck of George Floyd, a black man that he’d arrested, set off a wave of protests across the country that continued into Friday night; related story reports US attorney general William Barr said Floyd’s death was “harrowing” and “deeply disturbing” and vowed that a federal investigation would proceed quickly.
• Trump announced his administration would “begin the process” of ending the American government’s special relationship with Hong Kong, including on trade and law enforcement, and that he was withdrawing from the World Health Organization as part of a broad effort to retaliate against China.
• The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to seize private property for Trump’s border wall, taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to survey land while its owners are confined indoors, and has filed 78 lawsuits against landowners.
• New York City, long the epicenter of the global coronavirus crisis, is poised to start reopening in slightly more than a week, setting the stage for a slow and tentative recovery after two months of lockdowns that halted normal life in the city and caused a range of economic hardship.
• More than 100 scientists and clinicians questioned the authenticity of a massive hospital database behind a medical study that found treating Covid-19 patients with chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine did not help and might have increased the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and death.
• E-commerce has been embraced for all manner of goods and services, but auto sales have resisted the trend, a situation that is set to change amid the coronavirus pandemic as dealers realize they can sell cars online and interact with customers outside the showroom.
• Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said central bankers had seen the need to use a range of tools “to their fullest extent” as coronavirus lockdowns shuttered economies around the globe and caused US unemployment to soar.
Sunday
• During the weekend, demonstrators clashed with police from outside the White House gates to the streets of more than three dozen besieged cities, as outrage over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked protests, riots, and looting.
• The US opened a new era of human space travel Saturday when billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the first time launched astronauts into orbit, nearly a decade after the government retired the space shuttle program.
• In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court turned away a request from a church in California to block enforcement of state restrictions on attendance at religious services—chief justice John Roberts joined the court’s four-member liberal wing for the majority.
• Trump announced he planned to postpone the annual Group of 7 summit of world leaders until September and that he wanted to invite Russia to rejoin as part of an alliance to discuss the future of China.
• As coronavirus death tolls rise, medical professionals who specialize in oncology are bracing for another wave of victims: People not yet diagnosed with cancer who don’t get treated over concerns about coming to a hospital because of Covid-19.
• The growing data economy and the growing number of American renters since the 2008 financial crisis have fueled a rapid expansion of the tenant screening industry, now valued at $1B—but critics say many of the reports, produced cheaply and quickly, aren’t accurate.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Weekend
• Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell said central bankers had seen the need to use their tools “to their fullest extent” as coronavirus lockdowns shuttered economies around the globe and caused US unemployment to soar.
• Chinese president Xi Jinping faced a major leadership crisis because of his bungled response to the coronavirus outbreak, but his success in curbing the pandemic followed by bold moves on issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the South China Sea are signs of an “extraordinary turnaround.”
• The race to develop Covid-19 antibody tests, which use blood to tell whether someone has been infected, has led to a boost in demand for blood, with diagnostic companies paying high prices for the blood of recovered patients, posing problems for other researchers.
• Consumer spending, the American economy’s main engine, fell by a record 13.6 percent in April during coronavirus lockdowns, but there are signs suggesting that damage from the crisis is starting to ease.
• Federal Reserve officials head into their next policy meeting deliberating how to assist an economy in a deeper hole than it faced after the 2008 financial crisis at a time when their tools may not be as effective as they once were.
• As the Western US faces conditions that hint at a potentially severe wildfire season, firefighting teams must strategize about how to fight blazes while limiting the risk of coronavirus infections among the ranks.
• The European Union faces a fresh disagreement with Washington over China’s handling of Hong Kong—the bloc favors more dialogue with Beijing—and a potential split with the UK on a major foreign policy issue for the first time since it left the EU in January.
• Leading market economies are erecting new walls against foreign investment and suspicious trade practices, spurred by coronavirus-triggered economic upheaval and China’s increasing assertiveness.
• Economic results released in Brazil, Turkey, and India highlight the struggles of many developing-world economies even before the coronavirus pandemic caused governments to order lockdowns in late March that have since cost hundreds of millions their jobs.
• +/- AMZN, FB, GOOGL, MSFT: A much publicized effort to bring together Silicon Valley tech giants, investors, and the White House on tools to fight the new coronavirus is fizzling, a sign that—as one venture capitalist said—an app alone can’t fix the problem.
• Investors are pouring money into gold as a hedge against inflation based on concerns that central banks’ and governments’ stimulus measures will lead to a surge in prices—but the bet goes against the weight of recent history.
• Charter prices for vessels that transport crude oil have dropped 77 percent from their March peak, which came during a short-lived battle for a greater share of the oil market between Saudi Arabia and Russia.
• H.O.T.S.: Americans eat at home more than ever, but the coronavirus boost that some food brands experience is fading; “Trump may not succeed in ending social media as we know it, but he can certainly rain on the sector’s latest socially distant parade”; With more businesses starting to reopen, consumer spending looks as if it is starting to dig its way out of the deep hole caused by the coronavirus crisis.
FINANCIAL TIMES
Weekend
• Norway and Denmark reopened their borders to each other, but refused to do so for Sweden because of its controversial no-lockdown coronavirus strategy, which has led to a high infection rate.
• Italy’s coalition government is debating whether to bid for all or part of Borsa Italiana as Rome seeks to take back control of its strategic assets, including government bond trading infrastructure.
• The World Health Organization launched an internal review into the position of one of its celebrity ambassadors who was involved in the airing of an allegedly forced confession to Chinese state television.
• Big Read story says Hong Kong’s “role as a halfway house between China and the rest of the world is under threat—with Beijing intent on imposing a new security law, Washington could withdraw some of its trading privileges.”
• Lex Column: If an initial public offering with the size and global reach of JAB’s can be carried out over Zoom video conferences, there is little reason to resort to the usual manic, and expensive, roadshows; A move by UPS to raise prices for high-volume shippers could give AMZN more reason to accelerate the buildup of its own delivery fleet.
• Comment: “It is obvious to most that both household and public debt levels are a problem, especially the latter in the Covid-19 era,” says Merryn Somerset Webb. “Yet the flaws in the idea of wholesale cancellation make it more academic grandstanding than a real possibility.”
NEW YORK POST
Saturday
• Shares of Coty dropped after Forbes reported that Kylie Jenner, who sold her cosmetics business to the company, was not the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, and that she likely forged financial information, including business tax filings, to make herself look richer.
• + NFLX: Company inked a deal to buy Hollywood’s historic Egyptian Theater for an undisclosed price, a deal that had been in the works for more than a year.
Sunday
• New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the National Guard is “on standby” in New York if needed to help quell chaotic protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
• Pier 1 Imports, the struggling retailer, has been pulling in about $20M a week in online going-out-of-business sales, according to chief Robert Riesbeck, because prices have been so drastically cut.