Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

Hello again! It's been a busy week, as you'll see below. We have the latest on protests in France, the war in Ukraine and AI in human resources.

Supporters of student-loan debt relief march near the White House, June 30, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Supreme Court blocks student-loan forgiveness

Unforgiven: The conservative 6-3 majority stopped President Biden's plan to cancel $430 billion in student-loan debt. Biden said he would announce a new policy. The court this week also dealt a blow to LGBT rights in the case of a web designer who refused to provide services for same-sex weddings and rejected affirmative action in university admissions.
Unresolved: The court agreed to decide whether workers can bring discrimination lawsuits based on unwanted workplace transfers that were allegedly motivated by bias. It also decided for the time being to not weigh in on the legality of judges increasing prison sentences for criminal defendants based on charges for which they were acquitted. Here's a look at other rulings from this year.

Ukraine brings first charges for deporting Kherson orphans

Exclusive: Prosecutors charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes over the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans from the formerly-occupied city of Kherson, some of them as young as one.
The latest: A Russian missile attack on a village school in the Donetsk region killed two women, including a teacher. U.S. Army General Mark Milley said the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia will be very long and very bloody. I also recommend this story about 14-year-old twins who were killed by a Russian missile in Kramatorsk. Mourners said the girls were buried according to tradition - in wedding dresses because they died too young to marry.

France deploys 45,000 police after unrest over teen's death

Nationwide anger: Rage ran rampant from Toulouse all the way up to Lille after Nahel M., a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot in the Nanterre suburb of Paris. Rioters torched cars and public transport as well as town halls, police stations and schools.
A deeper look: Experts say France can no longer turn a blind eye to accusations by right groups of rampant racism within the police force, racial profiling, and questions about recruitment, training and police doctrine.

Half of Americans face stifling heat, poor air quality

Earth, Wind & Fire: Some 80 million people living in California, the Deep South and the lower Mississippi Valley were under excessive heat warnings and heat advisories through Friday and into the weekend. (Shall I rain on your July 4th parade with the environmental downside of fireworks?) A three-week-long heat wave killed at least 100 people in Mexico. See my colleague Sharon Kimathi's Sustainable Switch climate newsletter for more.
Not sustainable: BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, says it's still focused on decarbonization and other social issues, but its CEO said he won't use the term "ESG" anymore because it's been "weaponized." Shell's head of renewable generation is leaving after the CEO announced a shift back to oil and gas production because of investor pressure for profits.

Before I forget…

"The slaves built that": If you haven't read any of our series on the legacy of slavery in the United States, may I suggest that you begin with the absorbing personal accounts of my colleagues Donna Bryson and Tom Lasseter. Their stories of family history and identity are fascinating and fresh, and they discuss them on this special edition of the Reuters World News podcast.

Where is "General Armageddon"? Russian General Sergei Surovikin and other senior generals have been out of public view since Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin's abortive armed mutiny last weekend.

Brazil's federal electoral court froze former president Jair Bolsonaro's political career with an eight-year ban from public office for the far-right nationalist. But watch out for his wife Michelle.

Robot work: Oracle is adding a dash of irony to the term "human resources" by including generative AI features in its HR software to help draft job descriptions and employee performance reviews.

People taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy should temporarily stop before getting elective surgery, the American Society of Anesthesiologists says. New data on potential competitors with Wegovy may lead to more options and possibly lower prices in the estimated $100 billion marketplace. A leading global health body is set to declare the sweetener aspartame as a possible carcinogen.

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