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Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

They call them April showers, but it’s more like April downpours with the week of news we just had. Here’s the latest edition of the Weekend Briefing, where we take a look at how things stand and what lies ahead.

2023 03 31T144119Z 1476735007 RC2250AGJHFP RTRMADP 3 USA TRUMP

A screen shows Alvin Bragg and Donald Trump as traders work on the NYSE floor, March 31, 2023. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Trump will make first court appearance

Unprecedented: The former and would-be future commander-in-chief will appear before a judge in Manhattan after becoming the first ex-president to face criminal charges, over hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump accused District Attorney Alvin Bragg of political and racial bias.
What to expect: Trump will not be handcuffed, rather he will be fingerprinted and undergo other routine protocols when he goes to court on Tuesday where he is expected to plead not guilty. Specific charges are not yet known.

Lukashenko says yes to Russian ICBMS

More nukes: The Belarusian president said Russia could add them to the arsenal after agreeing to station Moscow’s tactical nuclear weapons on its soil.
Ukraine: The war ground on, especially around Bakhmut and Avdiika. Russia arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter, who pled not guilty to spying charges and was sent to pre-trial detention. The chairman of Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank called critics of its Russia business “morally arrogant.” And in the department of silver linings, crime in Ukraine is down since the war began.

Israel’s defense minister might keep his job

Lost in the mail? Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after he opposed the prime minister’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, triggering a surge in street protests and foreign alarm before the government paused the plan. But wait! Aides say Gallant never received a formal dismissal letter.
Terror charges: Israeli prosecutors indicted two Jewish settlers for assaulting Palestinians in Huwara in the occupied West Bank. Shin Bet said they were among a group who attacked cars and their occupants during Purim.

À plus tard, Paris

Macron gets out of town: The French president is leaving the burning garbage bins and angry constituents behind as he makes a trip to China, where he will perform an awkward balancing act between his global-statesman ambitions and his struggle to control embarrassing protests over his decision to ram pension legislation through parliament without a vote.
King Charles visits Germany: France was on his itinerary for his first foreign visit as king, but the protests put him off. He was warmly received by the German Bundestag in Berlin and laid a wreath in memory of the victims of the allied bombing in Hamburg during World War Two.

AI experts disassociate themselves from Elon Musk

Words! Words! Words! Four artificial intelligence experts expressed concern after their work was cited in an open letter, co-signed by Elon Musk, demanding an urgent pause in research. One author said the letter establishes a narrative suitable to Musk and two others said it contained “unhinged” claims.
I’m so sick of words!* A U.S. advocacy group asked the Federal Trade Commission to stop new OpenAI GPT releases while Italy temporarily banned ChatGPT over privacy concerns.

Before I forget…

Dominion Voting Systems’ case against Fox News will go before a jury (that’s bad for Fox), Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to new charges, Oscar Pistorius was denied parole a decade after killing his girlfriend, and the fossil-fuel industry will be allowed to injure some polar bears and walruses in the Arctic after a judge tossed out a court challenge.

Tennessee’s trans community fears a backlash after a Nashville school shooting; Canada is moving some asylum seekers to Atlantic and Maritime provinces, making it hard for them to find legal counsel; and doctors in the U.S. are debating how to use weight-loss drugs, while Novo Nordisk says stopping use of obesity drugs may cause full weight regain in five years.

The company that controls 20% of the U.S. egg market reported a surge in quarterly profit; Disney, Electronic Arts and Roku announced or started layoffs; and Wall Street finished the week with attention focused more on inflation than banks.

*Those “headers” in the AI item were written by Alan Jay Lerner for the musical “My Fair Lady” and not by ChatGPT.

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