Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday
· President Biden signed an executive order on Friday “to increase competition within the nation’s economy and to limit corporate dominance, factors”. The White House blames these factors for having led to “higher prices and fewer choices for consumers while dampening pay and restricting the freedom to change jobs.”
· After 24 hours of gunfire between police and suspects in the assassination of Haiti’s president, national authorities said they had arrested 20 people “and called on the United States to send troops to help protect crucial infrastructure.”
· Rony Célestin, who poses as a self-made multimillionaire, is one of the few lawmakers left in Haiti. And as “only 10 remaining members in all of Haiti’s Parliament, belongs to a tiny circle of leaders with the legal authority to steer the nation out of crisis now that the president is dead.”
· President Biden fired the head of the Social Security Administration, who had been appointed by President Trump’s on Friday, “setting off a possible legal showdown over who rightfully holds the position.”
· Taliban forces entered Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, on Friday “in a new phase of a sweeping insurgent offensive that has captured territory across the country since May 1, when U.S. forces began withdrawing.”
· Basking in the glow of his Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, Eric Adams has started to outline his mission if elected in November: “Making our city safe,” he said in an interview.
· Generation Z, made up by those people born between 1997 and 2012, want to shift away from Email, considering it highly outdated.
· Four years “after a woman was killed and dozens were injured,” the City of Charlottesville, VA., was removed on Saturday at 8:00 am, along with a nearby monument to Stonewall Jackson, another Confederate general.
· Science does not support the notion that “marijuana improves performance…. To the contrary, the evidence is inconclusive at best.”
· The Sea of Marmara, fabled for its blue waters has been suffering from pollution has for a long time, and a paroxysm this year has choked its waters and suffocated marine life.
FINANCIAL TIMES
Weekend
· Business groups have objected to President Joe Biden’s executive order to “curb the power of big business by stamping out anti-competitive practices,” which was signed on Friday as part of the White House’s strategy “to tackle concentrations of corporate power in several sectors.”
· Despite cases of coronavirus and hospital admissions rising every day, Britain is preparing to lift Covid-19 related “restrictions, from social distancing to mask wearing, in a bid to restore normality.”
· Chinese companies “that have the data of more than 1m users will need to pass a security review before issuing shares on overseas stock exchanges, the country’s internet regulator said on Saturday.”
· Intel (INTC) said it would spread its new European $20 billion investment in semiconductor production “across several EU member states, as it lobbies to win the bloc’s financial and political support for the project.”
· Less than 33% of US condominium associations “have sufficient funds saved up for big-ticket repairs such as structural work or replacing a roof, and experts say delays and disagreements are common not just in Florida but across the US.”
· The G20 economy ministers and central bankers gathered in Venice to discuss the G7 and OECD approved proposal to force multinational companies to pay a global minimum corporate tax.
· Bond fund managers “who bucked a market consensus earlier this year that long-term interest rates and inflation were headed sharply higher,” saw higher than expected returns in the past few weeks.
· Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has ordered a deep reshuffle of his government “as his ruling Socialists seek to regain the initiative after a series of setbacks on the political, economic and diplomatic fronts.”
· Sarah Friar, the new chief executive of the social network Nextdoor, “is trying to recreate that camaraderie and Blitz spirit, this time, online.” Nextdoor is a niche platform compared with the larger social media platforms, aimed at local news, services and businesses.
NEW YORK POST
· Authorities are searching for a 30-year-old inmate, identified as David Mordukhaev. He fled the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center, a floating prison barge, on Halleck Street, in The Bronx overnight.
· Younger people are being hospitalized in Spain, which was reopening to facilitate summer season tourism, due to a resurgent coronavirus contagion. “The country has prioritized vaccination for its elderly and at-risk populations, while younger less vulnerable groups have largely eschewed the jab.”
· The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was the subject of jokes on social media for having used a clearly photoshopped image, featuring “smiling, diverse office staffers standing in a lobby, flanked by a woman in a wheelchair and a blind man with a seeing-eye dog.”