TheChek News Flow

* NYT (Saturday): Breaking with decades of practice, Mexican officials are carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration agenda along the border, undercutting earlier promises to defend migrants and support their search for a better life; Hundreds of U.S. commandos and other forces are leaving West Africa despite an onslaught of attacks from an increasingly deadly matrix of Islamist fighters, and the shift has unnerved African commanders in Burkina Faso and other sub-Saharan areas; Brands are giving lucrative endorsement deals to young children—known as “kidfluencers”—on YouTube and Instagram, raising questions about whether people in that age group should be seeing that kind of marketing; Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau promised a fresh approach to politics based on openness, decency, and liberalism, but now finds himself embroiled in a scandal involving support for a Canadian company accused of bribing the Libyan government; +/- Huawei: Canada’s Department of Justice authorized an extradition hearing for chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is wanted on fraud charges in the U.S., which accuses the company of stealing trade secrets and evading sanctions on Iran; (Sunday): Donald Trump presented North Korea what he considered a grand bargain: it would trade all its nuclear weapons, material, and facilities for an end to the American-led sanctions squeezing its economy—essentially the same deal previous presidents had offered, and which Pyongyang flatly rejected, undercutting Trump's vaunted “dealmaking” skills; “As battle lines harden between supporters and opponents of climate action, both are increasingly using bouts of extreme weather as a weapon to win people to their side,” raising the stakes for scientists who attempt to distinguish between short-term fluctuations and long-term shifts; Trump said he will issue an executive order that would help guarantee free speech at colleges and universities by putting their federal aid at risk if they do not protect the viewpoints of students of all political stripes; Sunday Business: Women make up only a small percentage of investing partners at the top 100 venture capital firms, and last year female founders received only 2.2 percent of $130B raised in VC money, a situation that has prompted the creation of women-only networking and entrepreneurial groups such as The Wing.

* WSJ (Weekend): Before Donald Trump’s meeting with North Korean Kim Jong Un, U.S. diplomats, sanctions officials, nuclear experts, and missile specialists taking part in working-level talks realized the country expected much more in sanctions relief than the U.S. was prepared to give; Lyft’s move to file for an initial public offering “fires the starting gun on what is expected to be one of the biggest years ever for initial public offerings” with a healthy stock market and the major indexes rallying; Technology is causing strains throughout the banking industry, especially among smaller rural banks that are struggling to fund the ballooning tab for digital services demanded by their customers—many of whom are moving their accounts to larger banks; Growth slowed at U.S. manufacturing firms in February, a sign the slowing global economy and uncertainty over trade could have clouded the outlook for factories; Democratic support for Medicare-for-all is slipping from the high levels seen around the November midterm elections as voters worry about its price tag and the toll it would take on both private and employer health coverage; Congress voted in February 2018 to suspend the borrowing limit for about a year and is set to reinstate it Saturday, but the Treasury won’t be able to borrow more money until lawmakers suspend the ceiling again; +T: Now that its acquisition of Time Warner is complete, the telecom giant plans to “officially break down the corporate walls and fiefdoms that have long been a way of life at the company's HBO, Turner, and Warner Bros. units”; West Virginia’s dependence on coal, which is fast losing ground as a desired source of energy, has left the state and its workforce poorly equipped to attract advanced jobs in technology and manufacturing that are key to prospering in today’s economy; Few economists predict a return to an age when manufacturing accounted for the top job in dozens of states, but many say the industry has stabilized, with much of the recent job growth coming from companies producing long-lasting goods, such as transportation equipment and machinery; Automated financial advisors—or “robo advisors”—are expanding into the cash-management market with higher rates, their latest move to capture clients from traditional, higher-cost banks and brokerages; Many investors say Chinese stocks are inexpensive despite this year’s surge, but the consumer and technology stocks many active fund managers prefer aren’t quite so appealing; H.O.T.S.: The age of gene therapy promises a wave of life-changing and life-saving medicines, but the high costs of such drugs raise a number of thorny questions; “MSCI is raising the portion of China A-shares in its EM index—but that doesn’t give investors carte blanche to snap them up”; Macau has seen gambling revenue growth stall, but that could change if it offered more casinos geared toward the mass market.