Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

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On Monday morning, US government officials seized First Republic Bank and later sold it to the nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. The move appears, for now, to have ended nearly two months of turmoil in the banking sector that followed the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in early March.

For Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, this is a reprise of his role in the 2008 financial crisis, when JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual at the behest of federal regulators. But the acquisitions have also fueled debate over whether some banks have become too big to fail in part because regulators have allowed or even encouraged them to acquire smaller financial institutions.

JPMorgan will likely make a lot of money from the acquisition, according to experts. JPMorgan will pay $10.6 billion to acquire First Republic, and the government hopes to cover losses of about $13 billion in First Republic assets. JPMorgan said it expects the deal to boost profits this year by $500 million.

Context: Normally, a bank cannot acquire another bank if doing so allows it to control more than 10 percent of the country’s bank deposits – a threshold JPMorgan had reached before buying First Republic. But the law includes an exception for the acquisition of failed banks.

End the crisis? No other lender appears to have the same significant challenge: First Republic has extensive real estate loans that have lost value as interest rates rise and a customer base of wealthy depositors withdrawing funds as the bank falters.

Russia launched a wide-ranging air strike in Ukraine yesterday, and Ukraine reported that its pilots had carried out four strikes on Russian-held territory in areas with concentrations of enemy personnel. Together, the attacks are a sign of intensifying fighting ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said the country’s military was “reaching the finish line” in preparation for launching a counterattack. In response, Russian troops have moved into defensive positions in the south, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. The incredibly muddy ground was one of the most difficult obstacles for the Ukrainian military to overcome.

In Pavlograd, in central Ukraine, dozens of buildings were destroyed, and at least 34 people, including five children, were injured, local officials said. In Kyiv and elsewhere, explosions erupted across the predawn landscape as air defenses shot down what the Ukrainian military said were 15 of 18 Russian cruise missiles.

Analysis: Britain’s defense intelligence agency said Russia had “created some of the most extensive military defense systems seen anywhere in the world in decades,” not only near the front lines but also “deep into areas that Russia now controls.”

Toll: White House officials released a new estimate that since December alone, the Russian military has suffered 20,000 casualties in Ukraine.

AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, who in 2012 helped create the technology that became the basis for today’s AI systems, yesterday joined critics who said that technology companies are racing towards danger with an aggressive campaign to create products based on generative artificial intelligence, the technology that powers popular chat bots like ChatGPT.

Dr. Hinton said that he had quit his job at Google, where he had worked for more than a decade and was one of the most respected voices in the field, so he could speak freely about the risks of AI A part of him, he said, now regrets his life’s work. “It’s hard to see how you can prevent bad actors from using it for bad things,” he said.

The tech industry may be at its most important inflection point in decades. Industry leaders believe that new AI systems could be as important as the introduction of web browsers in the early 1990s and could lead to breakthroughs in areas such as drug research and education.

Concerns: Since OpenAI released a new version of ChatGPT in March, hundreds of technology leaders and researchers have signed an open letter warning about the risks of AI or calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of new systems because AI technology poses “great risks to society. and humanity.”

Can AI read minds? In a new experiment, researchers used a large language model to translate brain activity into words.

Meet the South Korean chef who is redefining the art of pastry, with boundary-blurring snacks that reflect his Korean background and French training.

“We are used to eating Korean food, and we are used to learning from Korean mothers,” Bomee Ki said. “It’s in our mind. Naturally it will come to our food. That’s what makes our food and place so special.

Preparations for the 2023 Women’s World Cup: The best players talk about some of their best moments on the field. This is My Game on Words.

How a pit stop almost turned into a Formula 1 disaster: The FIA ​​has explained the “dangerous situation” that brought Esteban Ocon close to a group of officials at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Why attendance is so high: The average attendance per game across all four divisions of English football was 17,826, the highest since 1951-52. Here is the reason.

Celebrities appeared in droves at the Metropolitan Museum of New York City last night for the Met Gala, the fashion event of the year, with a guest list hand-picked by Anna Wintour, editor of US Vogue. Every year, the dress code corresponds to the theme of the show – this time, the career of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019.

The attendees of the night included many frequent fliers (Kim Kardashian, Gigi Hadid, Serena Williams), as well as some new names: WNBA star and new Russian prisoner Brittney Griner, music artist Doja Cat and Paris Hilton, who – perhaps surprisingly. – making her first appearance on the show.

Kim Kardashian comes in pearls, and not much else. Rihanna, above, wears a dramatic wedding dress. Some guests announced life changes – Serena Williams is pregnant, and Florence Pugh has shaved her head. And Doja Cat paid homage to Choupette, Lagerfeld’s beloved cat, in a silvery dress with cat ear flaps, a fluffy white train and cat face prosthetics.

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