Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-North Carolina gerrymander ruling reflects politicization of judiciary at national level. When it had a Democratic majority last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court voided the state’s legislative and congressional maps as illegal gerrymanders. Now the court has a Republican majority, and says the opposite.
-The US has begun an overland evacuation of American civilians from Sudan. A bus convoy carrying about 300 people was the first US-organized evacuation effort of Americans other than diplomats since fighting broke out.
-Montana Governor signs law banning transgender care for minors. Gov. Greg Gianforte was urged by his son, who is nonbinary, to reject the bill. A transgender lawmaker was barred from the House floor after the debate.
-NY State leaders agree to eliminate a provision that requires judges to prescribe the “least restrictive” means to ensure defendants return to court.
-Gov. Hochul gets a budget deal, but no signature win. The budget deal contained a series of hard-fought wins for the governor, but left her without a grand policy achievement to trumpet.
-The Federal Reserve released hundreds of pages documenting how bank supervision and regulation failed to prevent the lender’s collapse. The FDIC released a separate report on Signature Bank.
-Deadliest Russian attack in months on Ukraine’s cities kills at least 25.
The first widespread barrage on civilian targets in more than a month underscored the vital role of Ukrainian air defenses.
-The EU will provide more than $100M to farmers in eastern countries where tariff-free Ukrainian grain produced a supply glut and plunging prices.
-House Speaker McCarthy brought his detractors in from the cold. Will they stay? The speaker’s all-carrots, no-sticks approach of empowering hard-right Republicans carries risks, and any negotiation with President Biden on the debt ceiling is likely to test them.
-President Biden, who gets out of town most weekends, will attend the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday evening.
-Former vice president Pence faces many challenges in his potential presidential run, perhaps none bigger than his complicated relationship with his old boss.
-Prosecutors in Jan. 6 case step up inquiry into Trump fund-raising.
The Justice Department has been gathering evidence about whether the former president and his allies solicited donations with claims of election fraud they knew to be false.
-Scientists have long known that dense breast tissue is linked to an increased risk of breast cancer in women. A study published on Thursday in JAMA Oncology adds a new twist, finding that while breast density declines with age, a slower rate of decline in one breast often precedes a cancer diagnosis in that breast.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Joe Biden is racing to win early support from Democratic donors for his re-election bid, hoping to beat the $1B haul he landed in 2020 ahead of what some pundits predict will be the most expensive presidential race in US history. Biden’s announcement this week that he intends to run for a second term in 2024 allowed his campaign team to start fundraising in earnest. Within hours of his declaration, they set about putting the finishing touches to a two-day event in Washington starting on Friday that will bring together Wall Street financiers and other backers.
-Shares in First Republic plunged 49 per cent in after-hours trading on Friday as the embattled California bank prepared to end another week of turmoil without a long-term plan for its survival. First Republic and its advisers have been working on a private-sector solution that would keep the bank from being taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, according to people briefed on the matter. But they have thus far failed to craft a proposal that can win over both the big US banks and government officials.
-Hedge funds betting against US technology stocks have been battered by $18B of losses after Big Tech’s robust earnings fueled a sharp rebound in the sector. Crispin Odey and James Hanbury are among the hedge fund managers burned by a 16% rally in the Nasdaq Composite this year, as a number of stocks with high levels of bets against them defied pessimistic expectations.
-US authorities ordered a tanker of Iranian crude oil to redirect towards the US in recent days, in a move officials believe was the trigger for Iran’s decision to capture a US-bound tanker on Thursday. Three people briefed on the situation said the US had intervened to summon a ship loaded with Iranian crude, originally destined for China, as Washington looks to step up enforcement of sanctions on Tehran. Iran’s navy unsuccessfully tried to pursue the tanker after it began its latest journey.
-Lazard said on Friday that it would cut 10% of its staff over the course of 2023, citing a continuing deep chill in deal activity and high costs from adding staff during the pandemic.
Revenue from its deal advisory business fell 29% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to earnings released on Friday. While asset management fees proved more resilient, overall Lazard reported an unexpected loss of $23M.
-The US Chamber of Commerce led by chief executive Suzanne Clark has warned that mounting Chinese scrutiny of American companies has “dramatically” raised the risks of doing business in the country, as signs emerge that Beijing may be cracking down on some foreign businesses.
The powerful US business lobby group, said on Friday it was “closely monitoring” China’s scrutiny of US professional services and due diligence firms.
-Deutsche Bank is investigating a bond purchase by its global head of human resources that appeared to have breached the lender’s rules designed to prevent insider trading, people familiar with the matter said. Michael Ilgner, a former professional water polo player who joined the bank in 2020, bought €201,000 worth of Deutsche bonds on April 18, according to a regulatory disclosure, just over a week before the lender released its first-quarter results.
-British SAS troops were inserted by US Chinook helicopters into the heart of Khartoum before a dash in commandeered 4x4s to the Wadi Seidna airfield 40km outside the capital where British military aircraft were waiting to fly everyone back to Cyprus. The complex operation was successful and casualty free.
-Egypt is struggling to sell off state assets in its effort to ease a foreign currency and funding crisis, as Cairo’s traditional Gulf allies toughen their approach to supporting the country. As part of a $3B loan package agreed with the IMF in October — its fourth since 2016 — Cairo agreed to reduce the footprint of the state, including the military, in the economy. Funds from asset sales are also seen as crucial to ease a severe foreign currency shortage and fill a financing gap the IMF estimates will be $17B over the next four years.
-Two closely watched US inflation reports rose by more than expected, highlighting persistent price pressures and resilience in the jobs market that strengthen the case for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next week. The labor department’s employment cost index, which tracks wages and benefits paid by private and public sector employers, rose 1.2% in the first three months of this year, up from 1% in the last three months of 2022 and higher than consensus forecasts of 1.1%.
-By the standards of Big Tech’s recent pandemic boom, the start to 2023 has hardly been a period for the history books. The first-quarter growth rates of 3 to 9% reported this week by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are a far cry from two years ago, when surging demand for digital services boosted Big Tech’s combined revenue by 41%.
NY POST
A former Moscow station chief for the CIA revealed on Friday that he was given the chance to sign onto a letter attacking The Post’s bombshell report on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop as possibly Russian disinformation — but he ultimately refused. Daniel Hoffman told Fox News on Friday that he was presented with the letter, which ended up being signed by 51 top US intelligence officials, on Oct. 18, 2020, but didn’t sign it because there was “no evidence” of Russian involvement.
“[A]t first glance, it seemed natural to lay the blame at the Kremlin’s doorstep,” Hoffman said during an interview on “America Reports.” “Remember, Vladimir Putin is in the Kremlin and he’s well-known for cloak-and-dagger espionage operations. But at the same time, there was no evidence. And the letter noted there was no evidence.”
-Anheuser Bush has reportedly hired a number for former Republican political aides in an effort to mend relations with conservatives following its controversial partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Disclosures show that weeks ago the embattled company, owned by Belgium-based brewing conglomerate InBev, hired lobbying firm Origin Advocacy for representation on “general policy regarding the alcohol-beverage industry,” Fox Business reported Friday.