Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
-Russia struck a second military target in Kiev this week, part of a campaign to degrade the Ukrainian military before an expected offensive to seize territory in the east. Russia stepped up its shelling before a battle that analysts say could be long and bloody.
-After Russian forces were mauled in cities and towns in northern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin is shifting his focus to the Donbas region, in the east.
-The sinking of a warship was a major blow to Russia — and the most significant combat loss for any navy in decades.
-Witnesses, video, police accounts and court records depict a troubled man’s carefully planned attack, which involved him setting off smoke grenades in a crowded subway car and then opening fire. At least 23 people were injured. The police named a “person of interest.”, and the lucky breaks he seized to melt back into the city.
-India is stalling efforts to make the global Covid death toll public. The W.H.O. has estimated that more than twice as many people have died as a result of the virus than previously thought. But it has yet to release those numbers.
-Trump’s Focus on the 2020 election has splits Michigan Republicans. Former President Trump is trying to reshape the battleground state in his image, driving a wedge between loyalists and those who are eager to move on.-In several states, Republican candidates are facing allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault. Few of their primary rivals want to talk about it.
-John Henry Ramirez, a death row inmate whose religious freedom case gained national attention, may win a reprieve in an unexpected twist.
-A new aircraft being built in Vermont has no need for jet fuel. Amazon and the Air Force are both betting on it. So who will be in the cockpit?
-Stocks, bonds and commodities are already pricing in inflation, the pandemic and war. But market conditions may not get much worse, according to a NYT columnist.
-Twitter is intent on fending off Elon Musk’s $43B offer, with a method devised in the 1980s to protect companies from corporate raiders.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
-Bond prices have tumbled this year as central banks move to end large-scale asset purchases and raise interest rates in their battle with soaring inflation, pushing yields in many big economies to their highest levels in years.
-Elon Musk laid out some sweeping claims for this week’s unsolicited approach. Shareholders, he promised, would “love” the rich premium he was offering. He would bring free speech back to one of the most important social media sites. And he would overhaul the management of a company that had lost its way.-The number of daily new cases in the US has increased by 14% since the beginning of April, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, reaching about 32,000 cases a day. The rise is being fueled by the BA. 2 variant, which has caused surges in Europe over the past few weeks.
-Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda brushed aside Russian threats to increase its military presence in the Baltics and deploy nuclear weapons there if the pair agreed to sign up to the alliance. He said Moscow had kept such weapons in its Kaliningrad exclave for many years and that Finland and Sweden were only responding to Russian aggression.
-President Emmanuel Macron has called for an EU-wide framework to cap “abusive” executive pay after anger in France over a €19.1M package for the head of carmaker Stellantis. The criticism of the award to Carlos Tavares came as Macron entered the final weekend of the French election campaign seeking to fend off far-right challenger Marine Le Pen, who also condemned the exorbitance of the Automaker’s head.
-The Biden administration will restart oil and gas leasing on federal lands as it comes under increasing pressure to bring down high petrol prices, backing away from a freeze that had riled industry executives.
-Can Adams stop New York’s slide towards senseless violence and decay? Some residents are already warning of the “bad old days” of the 1970s and 1980s, when murders approached 2,000 a year, the Bronx burnt and the city lost 10% of its population in a decade. With 488 murders last year, New York is still far from that. But shootings are up 8% so far this year, and 72% from two years ago.
-Since October, almost 20M carbon offsets — units that companies use to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions — have been converted into digital tokens. The tokens can be used to offset emissions or converted into a new cryptocurrency, Klima.
-China’s central bank has reduced the amount of reserves that banks must maintain in an attempt to boost the economy, which is struggling with the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns implemented by dozens of cities in recent weeks.
-Wall Street banks detailed billions of dollars in potential losses from the war in the Ukraine this week, while warning that they saw no end in sight for the market turbulence unleashed by the Russian invasion.
THE NEW YORK POST
-The White House has quietly resumed its after-dark charter flights of underage migrants to a suburban airport north of New York City — after a Post expose led to their suspension last year. The Post reporters watched as a group of migrant teens got off an Avelo Airlines plane that arrived at the Westchester County Airport near White Plains at 21:25 Thursday. The group then boarded three waiting buses that drove off about 50 minutes later.
-Signing bonuses for lawyers are at a record high — with some junior partners nabbing as much as $1M to sign on at a new firm, according to legal recruiters. And younger lawyers at the rank of senior associate can rake in as much as $100,000 hiring bonuses.
-Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin isn’t just investing in stocks, he’s also investing in politics — to the tune of $40M in the upcoming midterm election cycle, according to a report. Griffin, who made more money than any other hedge fund manager last year — raking in $2B in 2021 alone — has also become the No. 1 donor to Republican causes, according to the Wall Street Journal’s tabulations.